A Million Candles Burning
by KannaKyomu
Summary: The stranger let out a soft breath, whether from nervousness or something else she wasn't sure. His blue eyes flicked to her and back over to her companion. "I know you're both probably nervous." He placated, showing his open palms. It might have been more effective if he didn't have a large, sharp looking hunk of round metal strapped to his arm. Sequel to Cracking Glass.
1. Part One

**Important Note:** This fic is a  Sequel, it's not 100% required to read _Cracking Glass_ before this, but you may find yourself lost of a few plot points should you choose to skip it.

* * *

This work has been Beta-ed by Wistfuldaydream: without whom this fic would be riddled with errors and poor sentence structure.

AN: Hello again to everyone who has signed up for Author Alerts- and for those of you joining us for the first time, Welcome! This story was originally going to be a one-shot similar to its predecessor, and then, well… I accidentally the whole thing and here we are. By the end this will either be in Three Parts, or Four.

If y'all hadn't noticed from _Cracking Glass_ , I do want to confirm that time passes in a radically different way between the Harry Potter Universe and the Avengers Universe. So this story is going to be jumping forward in the Avengers timeline pretty quickly while Hermione is still on her proper side of the book.

I have done my best to keep their time-line properly, and the first mentions of the Avengerverse will take place before the first Thor movie, and then during, followed by the first Avengers and later segway into Age of Ultron; which is after both Thor: The Dark World, and Captain America: Winter Soldier. (although these last two aren't specifically mentioned, they do happen.) Civil War will come later on.

I just wanted to clear that up so that there's no confusion on the timeline progression.

So Loki is technically "Dead" during AoU onwards (or on Asgard as it were) but I will be expending my Author Rights to make sure he shows up, so don't worry about him being a no-show.

Anyways, on with the fic!

 **A Million Candles Burning**

* * *

"Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name. Vilified, crucified, in the human frame. A million candles burning for the help that never came."

You want it darker.

There's a lover in the story, but the story's still the same. There's a lullaby for suffering, and a paradox to blame. But it's written in the scriptures, and it's not some idle claim.

You want it darker, we kill the flame.

They're lining up the prisoners and the guards are taking aim. I struggled with some demons; they were middle class and tame. I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim.

You want it darker.

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name. Vilified, crucified, in the human frame. A million candles burning for the love that never came.

You want it darker, we kill the flame."

-Leonard Cohen

* * *

Part One

The fire cast shadows that flickered, lengthening the dark across the floor of the common room until it seemed to blend with the silence of the empty space. Only the faint crackle and occasional pop from the slightly damp wood in the grate made any sound. Hermione sat with legs folded beneath her in a cushy red armchair; it was late but she wasn't very tired.

A book was open in her lap atop the throw blanket she had pulled from her trunk earlier that night, but it was left forgotten as the woman who held it stared at nothing.

Summer was fast approaching, and Hermione had little left to study now that exams were finished. Not that she wasn't already preparing for her next year- the fifth year potions book in her lap could attest to that. Still, so much had happened this year and she could feel the familiar shiver of foreboding for her future, and her friends future, make its way across her thoughts.

Nothing good would come of this.

Her fingers found the ancient leather that curled around her wrist and she rubbed the pad of her thumb across it absently. The bracelet magic was old; it was so foreign from her own that it had become a comforting reminder for her.

Somewhere, in all the world and all its realities, existed the Gods of old.

And if such things were real, things so wondrous and powerful; a magic older than she could truly comprehend then perhaps the worries of her world were nothing but a pithy footnote at the bottom of the universe.

Loki would know what to do. Thor would know what to say.

Hermione exhaled slowly from her nose; giving herself a soft reminder that her friends were out of her reach for now.

She missed them terribly.

And as her thoughts were wont to do she turned again to examine her last meeting with Loki. He had behaved strangely at first, before swiftly moving right into dangerous territory.

She didn't really understand what had happened to the little boy she had known, but Hermione knew jaded when she saw it. It hadn't seemed like he had any intention of hurting her, or gods forbid killing her, but it was hard to say something definitive like that when you didn't truly know a person.

She had read the Norse Eddas after her return, hoping to glean some kind of insight into what had brought the change to Loki's personality, but eventually she had to give up on the particular avenue. The books seemed too far-fetched and fanciful compared the the boys she had come to know.

Though, even after she had dismissed the majority of humanity's version of events, perhaps some small amount of the way Loki had been described in them helped her reach a theory on why he had behaved the way he had. Living in the shadow of his brother, his soft personality as a child overshadowed completely by the bright allure and charisma that Thor had. Still, she couldn't fathom how that alone would twist him so horribly.

She wondered if his origins written in the Eddas had any truth to them- that Loki was the son of a frost giant. The realm of Jotunheim wasn't exactly looked kindly upon by the Aesir, and it would be an unpleasant thing to learn you were one when all your life you were raised to believe the entire race had little inherent value.

She sighed in frustration, because the Eddas were written by mortals and couldn't really be taken for face value, she might never know the truth behind Loki's sudden turn towards something darker. (She thought this now, but in a few years time when Hermione would cross wands with men and women who had chosen a darker path in life she would understand it better.)

"Hermione?" She turned at the sound of her name, startled by the suddenness of another human being in the room with her when it had only been the sound of the fireplace for the last few hours.

"Oh, Harry." She greeted as the disheveled boy came down the stairs.

"What'r you still doin' up?" He slurred sleepily, and his green eyes met hers behind askew glasses.

Hermione's breath caught in her throat, and for a moment all she could do was stare at him. And as she had thought so many times before, she thought now that his eyes were not the right shade of green. They did not gleam in the light like a nebula suspended in time, infinite and deep as the well of space the colour called home.

Harry blinked, breaking her morose thoughts.

"Hermione?" He questioned, voice a little clearer; more aware. His brow furrowed into something more concerned.

"I was just doing some light reading." She reassured him, holding up the book in her lap for him to see in emphasis, and he squinted at the title in the dim light.

"Potions Year Five?" He said incredulously, but he shook his head a moment later with a look that clearly said: _Ah, well. It is Hermione after all._

She smiled ruefully and unfolded herself from the sitting chair. She set her throw blanket across its back and carried her book over to Harry at the bottom of the stairs.

"It's late, I should probably get to bed." She said absently without looking at him. It was not the first time it had been too difficult to look at her best friend, and she was sure it wouldn't be the last.

"Yea," He agreed slowly with narrowed eyes. He probably knew something else was up. Harry though, had his own set of troubles and problems right now and she knew he wouldn't press.

He didn't, and the strange occurrence was quickly set aside by the Boy-Who-Lived, categorized as something brought on by the return of the Dark Lord.

Harry Potter never would learn the truth of it.

* * *

Hermione screamed.

She screamed until her throat felt like raw meat and then she gurgled helplessly, mouth agape and eyes wide as agony seared through her entire being. It was like having shattered glass inside her skin, ripping, shredding, brutalizing every part of her body until nothing was left but her soul and somehow that too felt like it could be ripped away.

Every bit of who she was: unmade. Her memories lost; thoughts jumbled into a mixture of nothing and everything until she couldn't even remember her own name, why she was here, what was the purpose of this?

Was there even one to begin with?

Then it was over. Two seconds made into an eternity, punctuated by the mad cackling of a woman whose laughter was like a rusty hinge. Hermione's head lolled to the side, the cold floor pressing to her cheek; a reminder that she was still here, still alive.

She wondered if that was true though- she knew there was no way she was going to walk away from this and be the same person.

This war was far out of hand now, spiraling out of control and it took this very moment for the brightest witch of her time to come to terms with the truth of it: she was a child soldier; marching to the tune of bedlam spewed from all sides.

One man, who couldn't really be called a man anymore, something closer to a monster now, who carved his ideals out with dark magic and the flesh of muggleborns and purebloods alike. And at her back stood the side of light, grown adults molding young children to fight a war they had long been losing. It was like the entire wizarding world had lost its damn mind.

Hair plastered to her skin, spilling out around her to fan across the floor in an imitation of blood spilt, Hermione's dulled, tired brown eyes met with steel grey.

She had never seen Malfoy look more horrified as her body seized uncontrollably with LeStrange's next gleeful cry of " _Crucio!"_

She held his gaze even as her voice once again failed her, silent screams reaching out to no one because no one wanted to hear them. Maybe Hermione didn't exist. Maybe she was just as mad as the rest of the world.

Something in Draco's eyes reminded her of someone else. Something she wanted to remember but couldn't quite reach outside of the terror the adrenalin and the _knowledge_. That final, abhorred knowledge:

 _Hermione Granger was going to die here._

And even if she did live, could she ever again say she was truly _alive?_

She didn't want to know the answer to that. For the first time in her life, she didn't want to know.

Her arm burned where Bellatrix's word had been mercilessly carved into her flesh; the wound pooled a brilliant crimson underneath her to mix with the sick that had spilled from her lips after the first unforgivable.

She was too worn, too crazed with pain to bring herself to care about this comparatively insignificant thing that would now forever scream _Mudblood_ to anyone who cared to look at her forearm. Still, clear liquid pliped off the tip of her nose to join the other assorted bodily fluids gathering beneath her. Whether her tears were for the pain, or the slander, or both she wasn't sure.

LeStrange was talking, saying something that Hermione was too far gone to hear, too out of it to care. The older woman grabbed her by the back of her head and bent her face upwards, cold spindly fingers tipped with jagged nails digging into her scalp.

Hermione just gurgled at her again, spit and blood dripping from the corner of her mouth. Bellatrix let go and her face smashed back into the unforgiving floor.

Something inside her snapped, something distant and half dead cried out and thrashed and it demanded for an end to the literal torture.

 _Please!_

It was the last vestiges of her sanity, which quickly turned into a pleading, sad kind of soft begging after another round of unforgivables.

 _Please..._

She lay there for a moment, an hour, an eternity, as unmoving and still as any soulless creature. Her grasp of time had long since fled. Only the skittering expressions that passed over Malfoy's face served as a change to the constant pain and her torturer's gleeful laughter.

 _Enough. No more._

 _Please._

As she lay there in her short reprieve, Hermione saw movement from the corner of her eye but she was too gone to remember how to turn to look. Little feet stopped before her, clad in soft, brown leather boots caked in river mud. Knees bent in her line of sight and a little boy leaned forward to peer into her face. Dirt smudged cheeks and a concerned eyes, as expressive as they had always been.

A ghostly sensation passed over her skin as a little hand came forward to skim her bangs away from her eyes. Her bangs didn't move.

He had the bluest eyes she'd ever seen. Blond hair bobbed about his features as he gestured wildly, lips moving but no words coming out. The little boy looked over his shoulder imploringly, to a smaller black haired boy with pale skin and delicate features.

Green eyes that swirled with color, like a nebula dancing through space met dull, empty brown eyes. There was something infinitely sad and lonely about those eyes. Something long lived and eternal, a kind of magic she had never grasped that sprung forth like a never dry fountain.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew they weren't really here. Just some crazy projection of her own imaginings. Maybe she really had lost it, because in the next moment she blinked and the apparitions were gone.

Her heart sank in her chest and Hermione was surprised that she could feel anything at all outside of the magically induced agony.

"Thor," She called in a strangled murmur, the sudden sound of it startling her. Her voice garbled by fluids and muffled into the floor. She could barely even hear herself. It… wasn't enough, she needed to give everything she had left.

Wasn't enough for what? She wasn't sure, she couldn't remember. She knew it was important though… something… something…

" _If you ever have need, call for us, and we will come."_

Hermione shattered into tiny, incomprehensible little pieces, and with the last shred of who she was, she lifted onto shaking arms and screamed.

" _Loki!"_

The ancient leather that lay curled around her wrist heated just enough for her to notice the change, and for a split second realities and realms were bridged.

Then the magic sputtered, and died.

Hermione didn't notice this, her attention arrested by a door banging open. A boy appeared in her line of sight then, and in her half-dead, half-crazed state she saw black hair and green eyes and her spine sagged in relief _because he had come for her._

* * *

This celebration was an identical copy of every celebration that had come in the wake of one of Thor's great battles. Rancorous laughter, heavy drinking, and heavily edited recollections of the battle.

Such was the victors right in every realm, throughout all of history. The victors always told the tale.

Loki couldn't say he really enjoyed these things. He filled his required amount of time present and then he left. Drinking and womanizing had never really been his idea of fun, not like his brother.

Luminous green eyes slid across the great hall filled to the brim with excited, and extremely drunk Aesir, looking to catch his brother's eye. Thor's pleased grin stretched his lips with all the genuine honesty he was made of. Which coincidentally was quite a lot. They were very different, for being brothers. Loki had never missed this fact.

" _Loki!"_

The echoed voice boomed across the hall, as if screamed from a great distance between high canyon walls. It was followed by a harsh crack of magic like a fierce thunder clap and many covered their ears with startled cries. Silence fell heavily on the proud warriors; all eyes turning to the startled prince.

The All-Father stood slowly from his dais, looking every bit of the king he was. Neither son paid him any mind.

Thor's grin melted from his face like ice in the desert sun.

For the first time in many centuries, the sons of Odin shared the same realization, quickly followed by the same plan.

Thor's heavy boots echoed loudly against the stone floors with an urgency that Loki quickly fell into step with.

"Heimdall will see her." Thor said, and despite their many, many failed attempts in the past to subtly ask the gatekeeper of any hints of the arcane on Midgard- this time Thor sounded very sure of himself.

"This is not how the spell should function, it transports bodies not voices." Loki reminded him as they made their way into the golden hall, despite his words he couldn't keep the hint of excitement from his voice. This was the first breath of her existence Thor had heard since he was a young boy. It was the first Loki had since his, as he now admits, misbegotten attempt to steal her time magic.

He had been young and lacking the patience he now held in spades.

A loud clamor rose behind them quickly followed by the All-Father's demand for silence. It was obeyed without question, but Thor and Loki's swift pace had already left the elder brother's celebration far behind.

* * *

"Such a mortal does not exists to my eyes." Heimdall's words were firm.

Thor looked grim, but neither of the brothers were ready to accept it yet. The sorceress was clearly in distress and Thor was not in the habit of breaking oaths. Loki was not in the habit of letting perfectly good, and not to mention rare, arcane wielders go to Helheim without good reason.

Another, small and buried part of him rankled at the idea of her passing. If any day was the day that she died it would be too soon.

Hermione. Now that he was older he could recognize her for the child she had been; his eyes unclouded by time. The Sorceress Hermione of Midgard, who had filled his empty cup when he had been a boy. She had been his first taste of acknowledgement, of feeling like what he had had to offer would be enough.

That he, simply as who he was, was all that she had desired. Her eyes never searched his looking for truth in the whispers the prophets had spoken. Her words never demanded anything more than he was willing to offer. She had been a novelty, a being unlike any he had known before or come to know after.

The feeling had long faded with time, but Loki had never forgotten it either. Ever searching, ever seeking that same feeling out again, eons later only to see that when he did find it, that it was different, not quite the right tune. It never seemed as… real or true as when she had offered her hand. Of course, all of this was difficult for the God of Mischief to come to terms with- so he simply… didn't.

His last encounter with her had been a pity, the wheels of bitter fate had already begun to turn for him and he had been young and rash.

"Look again, perhaps on another of the Nine Realms." Loki insisted to the golden eyed gate keeper, only to have those disconcerting eyes turn on him.

"Such a mortal." He said slowly, eyes glazing before gaining a sharp focus, "does not exist."

Thor's shoulders slumped, and Loki's tensed in defiance.

Heimdall's hands tightened around his sword; the key to the bifrost. It was Loki's first clue to the presence at their backs.

"What is the meaning of this." The All-Father's commanding voice demanded from the entrance to the Bifrost room. "Arcane mortals? There is no such thing. I would know it."

Neither son would look at him, and Odin's frown deepened.

His sons were hiding something.

This had never happened in all the centuries he had raised these boys. At least- not for very long. Thor was too honest, and Loki in his never ending quest to gain his father's attention had assured it.

But something about this was different, and the King of Asgard felt a terrible sense of foreboding for it.

* * *

Somewhere, worlds and realities away, tucked tightly between piles of unsorted books inside an ancient wizarding school, a red leather bound book with gold leaf pages glowed momentarily in an attempt to bridge worlds and answer the call of mothers magic.

Sadly, the magical book was only so powerful and the distance was too great.

The glow sputtered and died after only a moment.

* * *

It wasn't long after Hermione's _ordeal_ as everyone seemed to like to call it, that she finally came to terms with the bracelet that never left her person. The magic must have worn out somehow. No longer functioning. Perhaps alternate dimensions were just too far separated to bridge the gap. Honestly, she should be grateful that she had even had the chance to meet the little godlings; maybe it was too much to ask for their help in a war they had no part in to begin with. It seemed an unfair thing to ask of them in retrospect.

Still, as her mind settled, part of her was relieved to finally _know_ the thing was only for aesthetics at this point, only for her own sentimentality. She kept it regardless.

A part of Hermione had fractured that day. Her innocence and blind trust had died with the experience; left to rot in Malfoy Manor. Her torture, followed by the broken promise had been a little too much for her optimism to bear.

Hermione was not the same person who had walked into this war, and she would not be the same person to walk out.

She swore they would though; Hermione, and Ron, and Harry. They were all going to get through this.

* * *

The first thing Thor did upon arriving on Midgard was to retrieve his hammer; because the God had his priorities in order if nothing else. His life was currently in absolute shambles, and if not for the steady company of his new found mortal friends he might have further lost his way.

The battle was far from over, Loki had claimed that their father lay dead; Thor's banishment, and the impending war he had foolishly caused on Jotunheim too much for the aging king of the Aesir to bare.

Thor had never felt the burden of guilt as he did now. It was a heavy cloying thing, but Thor was a prince of Asgard- if not in title then at least in memory. He would be strong. He would hold his head high and take his banishment with dignity.

He would make the best of this.

So in a small lull, when the mortal Jane bustled about with her companions between notes and computers and tracking devices, Thor made a search of his own.

He never had been able to accept Heimdall's words, nor his fathers. He had not imagined her as a boy as the All-Father seemed to think; Loki agreed with him on this one thing at least. And Thor knew his brother wouldn't have played tricks on him, not with this.

He knew it had been the Sorceress Hermione calling at the banquet and not one of his brothers magic ploys as his father claimed. Loki was many things, but when the young mortal was mentioned between them, his brother was serious, if not a little somber.

So Thor journeyed out alone into the quiet of the barren desert; and he called for her. There was no pressing need, no imminent danger to himself or his friends. The son of Odin simply wanted to know.

There was no response, the magic didn't even twinge.

He heaved a sigh, heavy with more than just this one failure to keep his oaths. She had only been a mortal, many centuries ago. Despite her power over time, she would have long ago made the journey to Helheim by now.

Thor wasn't sure what to think, but the boy in him clung desperately to this small piece of what his life had once been. When it was no more complicated that keeping a fugitive mortal who, by all accounts did not even exist, from the eyes of their father.

Once, when he and his brother had been of the same mind.

Surely though, his reason stated. She must be long dead by now.

It was a good thing Thor wasn't known for his reasonings.

* * *

Everyone had sacrificed something in the war. Their homes, livelihoods, sanity, family- loved ones. Not a single person had come out of this war unscathed, and Hermione was no exception. Her mind automatically cataloging every window and doorway, shadowed corners and advantageous places to cast a spell from without gathering attention to oneself.

It was a compulsion at this point, and Harry and Ron didn't blink twice when she jumped at the crack of a nearby disapparation, or when she hesitated to take a particular seat at the dinner table because it would leave her back exposed to the room.

It was the little things that added up, things they all recognized in each other. The behaviors they had drilled into themselves and each other, not because they desired to but because the war had made it do or die. Hermione, Harry and Ron were war veterans by the time they were eighteen, and it was apparent to anyone who cared to look. It was like a sickness that she didn't want or even know how to move past.

Oh, she had read books of course; PTSD, trauma disorders and the like, but her understanding of what the issue was didn't suddenly provide her the desire to not check over her shoulder, or to avoid bright patches of exposed sunlight on the street when there was perfectly good shadows lining the wall.

No, Hermione was quite damaged, and nothing could convince her that her paranoia was unfounded. Ron and Harry readily agreed on that, the idea that someday the world might be so 'safe' that the reflex to cast curses first and ask questions later would become null was such a fanciful one that the concept hardly even came up in conversation between them.

"Constant vigilance." Harry had echoed the words of their long ago teacher, and fellow wizard in the war that had taken his life. It had been about a year after the fact, and the trio stood panting, heaving for breath as the adrenalin rushed through their veins in a stark, brutal reminder. Strike faster, with more ruthless surety and strength than your enemy; least they get up again and kill you for your folly.

A small group of stragglers that could hardly be called Death Eaters anymore had attacked the Burrow that night, and their combined paranoia had been the only thing that had saved the Weasley family from burning to death in their sleep.

At least, they were all in agreement on continuing to upkeep their skills and reflexes right up until the day that George had apperated in on top of Hermione- in the middle of her locked office within the ministry, just before closing after hours of dead silence.

The remaining Weasley twin had lived, but Hermione would never forgive herself after that.

It was the catalyst for her sharp decline in her attempts at returning to functional society.

* * *

Hermione's triggers had gotten worse in later years. To the point where she felt better living alone, and working a job that required the absolute minimum of contact required with other people.

It wasn't so much that she didn't feel safe- although this was absolutely a part of it. No, it was more that she worried for the safety of everyone else.

Hermione used to have a lot of ideals, charities she had wanted to implement and laws she had dreamed of changing. She still wanted all of that, but now she found that the only option available was to work from her home. The windows spelled shut with alarm traps at every entrance.

Sometimes it felt like the paranoia ruled her life, and not for the first time she wished she could magic it away.

Despite her attempts to make the changes she had once dreamed of seeing as a young girl, she mostly just ended up with a lot of books. Reading, as it had always been, was her constant companion in the silence.

She ended up with quite the collection lining her small flat; shelves and shelves books filled the space. Some were basic instruction books in their three hundredth print. Others were not so innocuous. Some were dark, with a mind of their own. Rare things. Dangerous things.

And so it came to pass that a title she had always privately held close inside her heart was spoken aloud.

Hermione, the book expert.

* * *

At the age of twenty six, Hermione made her first long distance trip in over six years. She arrived at the gates of Hogwarts via portkey in the late afternoon during the current students summer vacation. It was only a short trip, and she was met with Filius Flitwick at the entrance hall so he could guide her towards the library she hadn't set foot in since her sixth year as a student.

"Madam Pince's passing was quite unexpected." Flitwick told her mournfully, and Hermione supposed it must be difficult for the professors to lose a coworker they had seen everyday for the better part of forty years.

Hermione herself felt a tinge of regret and sympathy. Despite her many hours worth of time spent buried in books here, she had never really come to know the old woman who presided over the ancient tomes. They had been acquaintances at best.

"We appreciate you coming out, Ms. Granger. I know it must be difficult what with the whole…" He trailed off, eyes darting away as his short stature took measured, quick steps to keep up with her easy pace.

He didn't have to finish, Hermione knew what most people thought of her. She was a shut in, pushing away wizarding and muggle society because of psychological damage from the war. It wasn't unheard of for witches and wizards to shun social interaction; it was just a bit unusual because of her young age.

Flitwick cleared his throat awkwardly as they made their way through the front of the library. Madame Pince's office was situated behind the checkout counter, the front door a silent reminder of the authority here as it was right next to the restricted section entrance.

"Well here we are." He said, "Let me know if you need anything."

"Alright," She agreed softly, eyes already scanning the various books and parchments scattered around the room.

There was barely even space to walk, let alone sit anywhere. Looks like she had her work cut out for her.

"Thank you Professor." She told the shorter man as he turned, and he looked back over to flash her a quick smile.

* * *

"So, wait. Let me get this straight." Doctor Banner interrupted the clamor brought on by Thor's tentative suggestion. And wasn't that something in itself, that the proud confident God would be tentative in anything.

Said blond God seemed confused by the assorted mortals hesitation.

As Thor saw it; magic was magic- did such a thing always require an explanation? Some things simply did not have one. His own hesitancy was only born by whether or not it could actually be done. The sorceress seemed far from his grasp after so many attempts at contact, but he had seen these mortals do some amazing things before- things the All-Father would not hesitate to deem impossible.

He would scoff at his father's short sightedness if such a thing wasn't a little too close to what his brother might do.

"You want to summon a sorceress- a human one- that you met when you were a child because you think her… magic… will be able to contest Loki's?" He hesitated over the word 'magic' as if it left a sour taste in his mouth to use something so ambiguous.

As if he hadn't already seen his brother perform such things already. Mortals really were a confounding lot.

"And how many centuries ago was that?" Tony Stark interjected sarcastically.

"Several." Thor answered honestly, the rhetorical question going completely over his head. "She is in command of time magics, however."

Fury's attention seemed to sharpen.

"Well that's... something." Barton gave his two cents.

"Is it really wise to bring in an unknown into the situation? A lot could have changed since you knew her." Steve asked his comrade, ever the attempted voice of reason.

"Yes," Thor said honestly, "I am sure they have, as they have changed for my brother and I as well."

Tony scoffed and folded his arms across his chest. "Why are we even considering this... hocus pocus," He made a swirling gesture in the air with one hand for emphasis, "We should be focusing on an actual plan and not summoning some fairy godmother."

"She is a sorceress, not a fairy." Thor corrected the man with a frown. The very rich egotist scowled at him.

"Don't get off topic." Romanov tried to deflate the argument she could see brewing.

"Put it on the back burner for now." Fury interjected. "If you think of anything, keep me informed. Right now our priority is locating the tesseract, and keeping an eye on Loki."

* * *

"So how does it work?" Banner asked Thor as they headed toward the laboratory to start running scans.

Thor gave him a sheepish look. "I do not command an understanding of the arcane as my brother does, all I know is what the result should be."

"Should be?" Tony asked the larger man with a quirked eyebrow. Thor nodded absently.

"Yes, when Loki and I were very young, we gave her a location spell that our mother created. It allows the caller to summon the individual. Its purpose was to pull us from danger."

"How is it anchored to her?" Banner asked curiously, "How is it anchored to you for that matter, you just- what, call her name and it summons her?"

Thor nodded.

Tony and Bruce shared a look. "Maybe some kind of unknown radiation?" Banner mused to the other man.

"No way, radiation wouldn't do anything to prevent quantum entanglement. It'd have to be some kind of wavelength capable of breaking matter down to the atom."

"Beam me up Scotty." Banner joked. Tony seemed to brighten at the pop culture reference.

"Who is Scotty?" Thor asked, sitting himself down in one of the office chairs at a long table covered in science equipment he didn't recognize, nor care to.

Tony and Banner gave him a look but didn't answer.

"Alright well let's start with the assumption that it is magic, Thor do the-" Tony made a gesture at the man, wiggling his fingers in the air "Calling thingy. Jarvis I want you to record and scan every wave length you can when Thor here does the thing, see if we can't figure out how this works." He murmured the last part to himself.

"I'll see to it, Sir." The computer AI agreed accommodatingly.

Thor leaned back on the hind legs of his chair, arms crossed and without even a by your leave he called out authoritatively, confident that his friends would find a way to assist the centuries old magic.

"Lady Hermione."

* * *

Hermione paused in her sorting, eyes locked onto a very familiar book.

She hadn't thought about it- or Asgard, or even the friends she had made there in a few years. It had always sat somewhere in the back of her mind, the kind of thing she wondered at absently before moving on with her day.

The damn book was glowing, it lifted itself off the desk, other books sliding off of it to topple onto the floor as it began to rise.

Hermione's breath hitched, eyes wide, wand already in hand and the other reaching towards the magicly depth enhanced pocket inside her jacket- just in case she needed her instant darkness powder.

And just like that the book toppled back onto the desk, silent, and nondescript.

* * *

"It appears to be some kind of photonic echo location." Jarvis informed the three of them. "I have analyzed the wavelength, but I do not believe it can be replicated by my systems. It's complicated in nature and there is are several aspects that are an unknown to our current science."

Tony scowled slightly, "Keep working on it Jarvis, if anything changes inform me."

"Yes, Sir." The AI acknowledged.

"Have faith." Thor said when he caught the agitated look on the Man of Iron's face, and Bruce had no idea where the guy got his never ending well of confidence from but he hoped that however this turned out that it was in their favor.

* * *

She took a step towards the little red book warily, eyes flying around the room for just a moment to catalog the space on reflex.

She was alone in the cramped office, and anyone she had previously known who might have been able to answer her questions were long dead now.

Wand still at the ready, she reached a tentative hand out, fingers visibly twitching before the touch of soft leather ghosted across her fingertips.

Nothing happened.

Her lips turned down at the corners slightly in confusion. The thing had just been glowing hadn't it? She knew she hadn't imagined that. She deliberated for only another moment before pocketing her wand and lifting the tome into both hands as if it were a newborn. With the gentle reverence that she always held old, important books with. This book especially.

Eyes flying back over to the door- still closed- she wasn't even sure why she was so nervous about someone walking in on her with it. It felt like her dirty secret that she had only kept out of some twisted sense of hoarded memories.

She didn't want to share them.

She had a choice few good things that were hers alone, and her memories of her time is Asgard were among them.

"Okay." She told it, reveling in the feel of its weight in her hands. "What's up with you?" She questioned. It wasn't often that any book ever actually had anything to say back and she suspected this wasn't that particular brand of magical artifact, but she felt the compulsion to ask anyways.

She turned it, so the spine lay flat in her palm as if she might crack it open and take a peek, but she hesitated again. The pad of her thumb swiped gently at the corner of the back cover, and she nibbled at her lip.

Hermione had never expected to see this book again, somehow she had always assumed that the old headmaster had spirited it away to places unknown and that it was simply gone from her grasp.

Not that she hadn't thought about it.

"Well, it's not like I have anything to lose." She murmured to no one.

The spine split with a creak of protest, and the first page lay bare before her curious gaze. She had half expected it to be in old norse, like all the books that had been in the Asgard library and Loki's room.

She turned it back over to confirm that the title on the spine was in English, and she supposed it only made sense if the outside was in her native tongue that the inside would be that way too.

She turned back to the inside, eyes skimming over the forward hungrily.

"Your father's gone a-hunting," She read the first line aloud with only a slight pause. "He's deep in the forest so wild, and he cannot take his wife with him, he cannot take his child. Your father's gone a-hunting, in the quicksand and the clay. And a woman cannot follow him, although she knows the way."

Hermione scoffed. "Well that's a bit s-"

She didn't get a chance to finish the thought as once more the book began to glow, and before her eyes the English letters morphed into the less familiar script of old Norse. She almost dropped it, but the part of her that flinched at the thought of unceremoniously dumping a book onto the ground prevented it.

Then her wrist began to burn, her eyes widened as they alighted on the long-silent leather that curled around her skin.

A breath later, the over stuffed office found itself empty, and a little red book fell to the floor with a dull thump in an imitation of the last time it had had a traveler.

Only this time there was no one who would know where she had gone.

* * *

This party, Tony reflected, had gone a lot better than his last one. That birthday had been a disaster. Things were… different now. He supposed nothing made people faster and better friends than fighting an army of aliens together, and it had been a good long while since they'd all been gathered like this for something other than Fury's little errands.

Now that Loki's magic doohickey was sitting in his lab, Javis working away at it before Thor left to take the thing back to his home planet or whatever. It seemed that everyone was feeling a palpable sense of relief with it in hand, Thor especially seemed relieved.

Everyone, except maybe himself.

He pushed his concerns away forcibly as his team gathered around him as if called by his thoughts. Thor had placed his hammer on the coffee table between them, and Tony couldn't help but eye the thing speculatively as the topic of 'he who is worthy' came up between them.

Clint tucked the pair of drumsticks he had been idly twirling between deft fingers into his back pocket as their blond teammate gave the archer the go-ahead to try and lift it.

"Did Glinda the White ever manage to pick it up?" Tony heard himself ask on reflex, his mind turning briefly to the magic-woman they had attempted to contact during the whole Loki fiasco.

"Who?" Thor asked with furrowed brows.

It was Cap who jumped at the chance to explain a reference he understood. "The Magician you knew."

"Ah," Thor nodded in understanding, punctuated by Clint's grunts of effort and Natasha's quiet laughter at the man's expense. "The Lady Hermione, no, I knew her long before Mjolnir came into my possession."

The blond God blinked then, a look of confusion crossing his face. "Although before my brother's passing, I did see-"

"Excuse me Sir, my apologies for the interruption." Jarvis interjected suddenly, and everyone except Tony looked up at the ceiling on reflex.

"What is it Jarvis?" Tony inquired with a small amount of curiosity. He assumed it had something to do with his and Banner's little 'project'.

It didn't.

"I have confirmed readings that the photonic echo location has reached its destination and returned with a carbon mass the approximate size of a small adult."

"What?" Thor and Natasha asked at the same time.

Bruce and Tony stood in tandem. "It worked?" Banner turned to him eyes alight with scientific curiosity.

"What worked? English please." Agent Hill who had been previously content to laugh at their antics now had a dangerous edge to her voice, as if she expected them to be up to no good. A fair assumption, Tony conceded silently.

"It seems," Tony began theatrically, and Steve's eyebrow climbed at the display. "That your little witch has decided to pay us a visit after all."

Thor was up, hand around Mjolnir's handle in a sweeping movement that startled a few of their present company.

"Where." It wasn't so much a question, as it was a demand. A very sharp one.

There was a pause, before Jarvis answered.

"I am unab-" and his voice trailed off, garbled and electronic sounding in a way that set all their teeth on edge.

"Jarvis?" Tony questioned, concerned. He tapped at his wrist watch in an attempt to pull up any information, or even to reboot his favorite AI system. It was completely unresponsive.

A metallic groaning sound filled the space between them, followed by a scraping, metal on metal shriek as a badly damaged robot dragged itself into the room.

And with that, all hell broke loose, the witches arrival pushed aside but not forgotten.

* * *

AN: If you've made it this far, thank you for giving this fic a try! I'd love to hear any comments or questions you might have so please leave a review. Part Two will go up after it comes out of Beta, and Part Three after that. I'm not sure if there's going to be a Part Four yet but we'll see. See y'all then!


	2. Part Two

_ii._

 **A Million Candles Burning**

Part Two

* * *

Hermione was confused, and a little more than on edge.

The leather around her wrist was smoking badly enough to make her shake her arm out in an instinctive attempt to remove the heat from her skin. A moment later all that was left of her long coveted trinket was ash in the air.

She sneezed at the smell, and blinked a few times. She'd been dropped into pitch darkness that a quick lumos revealed to be a hall made of raw wood. It was rounded where the walls met the floor and the ceiling; the grain patterns uninterrupted.

It was as if she was standing inside the hollow of a giant tree.

"This is not Asgard." She murmured, heart pounding and palms slick. She gripped her wand a little more firmly and gave it a flick to release the ball of light so that it hovered over her shoulder.

There appeared to be only two options here: forward or back. The wooden tunnel traveled far in both directions, trailing off into darkness where her light couldn't reach. The air was humid on her skin, but it tasted stagnant. Everything around her seemed to buzz with magic, that foreign, eternal magic that felt of little godlings and the palace they called home.

So maybe this _was_ Asgard then…?

Hermione laid her wand flat on her palm; she turned to face one dark path that led slightly up, then to the other which led slightly down.

" _Point me_ : Loki."

Her wand shivered in her palm before it slowly began to turn; circle after circle it spun before she finally ended the spell. Her magic couldn't find him.

* * *

Odin, King of Asgard, snapped his attention up so quickly he startled the advisor who had been speaking with him about matters he couldn't care less about. Being king was a lot more boring than he had anticipated, and he had anticipated it to be pretty bloody boring.

The old God narrowed his one good eye, looking off into the distance at something only he could see.

"My King?" His advisor murmured questioningly.

Odin ignored him. All of his attention was on the tendril of magic that had been seeking his disillusioned signature.

It was a magic he had not felt for ages. His heart began to pound inside his chest and his illusion would have faltered if he hadn't caught it in time.

He stood, using the staff of Odin to pull his weight up the same way he had watched his father do many times before he had come into possession of it. He had a role to play after all, and Loki wasn't the God of Trickery for nothing.

Right now, however, he had a sorceress to find.

* * *

" _Point me_ : Thor." She tried next, and was rewarded when her wand spun only once before snapping assuredly into place pointing towards the slight downward slope of the hall… or tunnel, or whatever it was.

"Right, off we go then." She encouraged herself quietly and with one last morose glance at the ash floating through her magelight she began the slow trek down. Her feet did more sliding than actual steps. The decline became steeper and steeper as she went.

And was it her imagination or was the air starting to feel… pressurized?

She cast a quick bubblehead charm just in case the hall ran out of oxygen.

She took three breaks, several hours of slow shuffling between them, and recasted her magelight once more when it began to wane. Hermione was beginning to think she might end up sleeping in the tunnel; she'd slept in much less comfortable places after all, when she came to a stop.

Her eyes narrowed speculatively.

The tunnel had begun to narrow; she'd been stooping down for the last hour and her nerves were running on high adrenaline. She was concerned that the space might become too small for her to continue. Hermione really didn't want to have to turn around and go back the other way after she'd come so far. Who knows what that might lead her to. Maybe just the same issue she was having here.

Hermione purposefully took measured, even breaths inside her charm. She could feel the pressure on her magic and she knew hyperventilating in a place like this would do her no favors.

She was sure if she had been a muggle she would have suffocated hours ago.

Now, however, the tunnel before her shrank in on itself in an ever narrower path. She'd have to crawl on her belly if she wanted to go any further. This was a claustrophobic nightmare.

Hermione mustered up some Gryffindor courage after one last _Point Me_ spell to make sure she was still going in the right direction.

The spell at least was sure that this was the right way.

She leaned forward, and with a flick of her wand- which she was sure to keep in front of her, she sent the ball of magelight down the tight space.

There wouldn't be any room to turn around, she'd have to crawl backwards if she came to a dead end.

"In for a knut, in a galleon." She'd come too far already to turn around.

So, with a steadying breath, Hermione pulled herself forward with her forearms, and did everything she could to calm her furiously pounding heart as the wooden tunnel brushed along both her back and her belly.

Nightmare indeed.

* * *

James Buchanan Barnes liked to think he was not a complicated man, even if this was for the most part- untrue. There were many things that he was, and certainly a good many more things that he was not. Most of the things he knew of himself were unfortunately not things you'd go home and tell your mother about.

Bucky had been wandering around the outskirts of this tiny town for the better part of an hour. It was a nice day; quiet and peaceful. Sun filtered through the gaps between bright green leaves to dapple across the ground in pretty patterns. It was the kind of day that lent him extra time to reflect on these things.

Regardless of Bucky's complicated past, and complicated feelings about them, he still liked to think of himself as relatively simple in his desires. He wanted a quiet, safe place to sleep and decent food to eat at regular intervals of the day- but mostly, he just wanted to be left in peace.

His world view did have room for some pretty strange things, understandably. High grade technology, mutants, Gods and the like. The world wasn't as mundane as it had been in the forties. Not to say that it had felt mundane at the time, but well, _comparatively._

Which was why he wasn't exactly stunned to see a woman, practically blue in the face and gasping for air crawl out of what had previously been solid earth.

Her hands had come up first, filthy skin and jagged nails separating sod until she had unearthed herself. Once her shoulders had wriggled free the rest of her seemed to follow from the newly made hole as if the very Earth itself had given birth to some sort of fae before him.

Or perhaps it was more succinct to liken her to a demon clawing out from the grave with her wild eyes, and gasping breath she certainly presented the right image.

Bucky suppressed a sigh as he reached for his gun holster and flicked the safety off.

Of course these things had to happen to him didn't they.

The woman wrenched herself free of the hole that was already crumbling in on itself and immediately leaned forward onto her knees, choking on her own gasping breaths. Clumps of dirt crumbled out of her hair; it streaked across her cheeks and clung to the fabric of her hoodie and blue jeans.

"Never again." He heard her soft voice, raw with tension.

He backed up a step, slowly, carefully. Maybe he could extract himself from this situation without drawing her notice.

Which quickly turned into a moot thought when she was on her feet in a flash, pointing a… stick at him threateningly.

She eyed the gun he had leveled at her in a similar fashion to the way that he eyed her stick.

"Err," She said, but despite the stutter he could see the calculating look in her eyes as she quickly processed him, his weapon, his metal arm, (and now he wished he had worn his jacket like he usually did) and the surrounding trees reminiscent to the way that he himself often did. That immediately put him on edge regardless of whether or not she thought a stick was a viable match for a gun.

She lowered the stick, but he kept his gun level on her. No way he was going to give up his defenses on faith alone. She brushed at her filthy blue jeans ineffectively, doe brown eyes meeting his dark gaze unflinchingly. His brow furrowed. Perhaps she was a mutant of some kind?

What type of person wasn't nervous while staring down the barrel of a gun- unarmed?

 _A dangerous one_. He thought; answering his own question.

"Listen, I'm a bit lost, could you tell me where this is exactly." She spoke in a lilting British accent, and made a general sweeping gesture at the surrounding trees. His brow quirked incredulously in response and she waited patiently for a moment, despite his continued silence.

"We're near Silver Lake." He said finally, and he didn't miss the way she seemed to startle at the sound of his voice. As if she hadn't really been expecting him to answer at all.

In fact, she seemed almost... distracted. Her eyes darted about the trees, as if looking for something with a strange expression on her face. Like crawling out of the ground was completely normal but where she had ended up was not.

He found himself lowering his gun as he watched her. The strange woman didn't seem to have a lot of interest in him. If she had been Hydra she probably would have attacked already. He wasn't ready to put the gun away yet, however. She didn't seem eager to put her stick away either.

"Silver Lake?" She parroted in confusion.

"Oregon." He added.

Her eyes widened, and he could see the genuine surprise in her expression. She was either a very, very good spy, or just some crazy person who pointed sticks at people and dug around in the dirt in the middle of nowhere.

"America!" She exclaimed in a hush, more to herself than to him it seemed. His brows furrowed again at that.

"Don't know what country you're in? That's pretty lost, miss." He said without meaning to. Something about her seemed… disarming almost.

She gave him a wry grin. It was stressed at the edges, that tell-tale crease in the corners of her eyes and the slight flat quality to her pupils.

Bucky was very good at reading tells. He had to be.

"Hermione." She offered, perhaps misunderstanding his statement for a prompt, but he was surprised nonetheless to hear that the name was the truth.

"Odd name." He commented, sliding the gun home into its holster at his waist. Her eyes watched the movement like she could read him just as well as he could her.

"Bucky." He added to his own surprise, and then his eyes narrowed. He wouldn't have normally offered his name like that. Especially that name. Something was off here, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what…

"Bucky?" She laughed, a light airy sound that distracted him from his previous line of thought. It slipped through his fingers like cupped water. "And my name is odd?"

He flashed her a roguish grin. His suspicions draining away to nothing.

* * *

Hermione did not fancy getting shot today. In fact, she didn't really find the idea appealing any day. This was her motivation behind the silent calming, and compulsion charms. It was simple enough, a quick swish and flick as she brought her wand down.

She did feel a little bad a first; it wasn't exactly nice to go casting spells on muggles. But the way he struggled under them reaffirmed her belief that it was for the best.

The man was a fighter, with his ragged brown hair and shadowed eyes. Not to mention the damn _gun._

He had the strangest arm, almost as if… it was made of metal. Some kind of armor perhaps? That made more sense. The whirring sounds it made when he moved the joint didn't lend a whole lot of credence to the idea though.

He had a bright red star emblazoned on the upper arm peaking out from the sleeve of his black shirt. Its colour was a stark contrast to the silver of the metal. Hermione wasn't sure if it was a reference to the stars on the American flag, or something else entirely. Perhaps it meant nothing at all and she was just overthinking it.

Regardless, Hermione had done enough fighting today thank you very much. She was tired and hadn't really been up for a fight first thing after crawling through a tunnel barely large enough to accommodate her shoulder width let alone her hips. She was sweaty, filthy and scraped raw in places that hadn't been scraped up since the war.

The only thing she wanted right now was a bed to sleep in, or even the ground. The dirt _was_ pretty soft looking actually. After she slept she'd figure out a bath.

Bucky's eyes swept across the area as he led her towards a nearby town. It was a gesture she was familiar with, and it only reaffirmed her belief that this man had seen battle in the worst kind of way. Hermione knew paranoia when she saw it.

"So where are you trying to get to?" He asked, his attention skittering quickly over to a squirrel that had shaken a branch high above them. He dismissed it a moment later, but his movements were starting to slow.

"I'm looking for someone." She offered a vague truth while recasting the compulsion charm for the third time in ten minutes. This was getting tedious very quickly.

The cluster of muscle that had started to bunch between his shoulder blades eased again and their previous pace resumed.

"That so." He murmured. Hermione wasn't sure what to think of his calculating tone.

They broke the tree line a moment later and stepped out onto a dirt road lined with picket farming fences. Cattle ambled about at the crest of a rolling hill, munching on grass and lazing about peacefully.

Bucky tensed quickly after they'd left the cover of the trees and he whirled on her before she could even blink.

His metal arm- which she was sure it was definitely made of metal now- squeezed around the soft flesh of her throat and he backed her up into the shade, off the road, and out of sight.

"How are you doing this to me." His dark eyes pinned her in place just as surely as his arm. He spoke through gritted teeth as his lips curled back in a snarl.

Hermione, wand still in hand gave it a little circular motion and he dropped her like a sack of potatoes. She coughed raggedly scrambling backwards on hands and feet. Bucky stared at his metal palm like he'd never seen it before.

"Sorry," She said between breaths. "I'm really not looking to fight." She held up her hands in a disarming gesture which probably would have been more effective if she hadn't been armed with her wand.

To a wizard, it would have been laughable, but to a muggle it could be the genuine thing.

He took a threatening step forward, fingers itching to draw his gun but too busy fighting against her compulsion charms to quite manage it.

"I don't like being controlled." He spat, furious. Hermione blinked at the vehemence in his voice; he'd said it like someone who'd had some nasty experience with an _Imperious_ curse. Hermione would have found it interesting from an academic standpoint if she wasn't so alarmed by the way he kept shrugging off her magic.

This man must have a very strong sense of self, or willpower, to manage it. She'd only been using small suggestions: for him to relax, presenting the idea that she was non-threatening. Everything else had been his natural personality; to help out someone who seemed to need it- once past his initial paranoia and aggression at least.

The thing was that this man was, as far as she could tell, _completely muggle_. He shouldn't have been able to simply move past her magic like it meant nothing to him, at least not for several hours. Her magic was barely lasting minutes.

"Please," She said hurriedly, "I'm not controlling you. I promise it's not like that-"

The man _snarled,_ fingers crushing around the grip of his gun and yanking it out of its holster to point it at her with enough force to rip the snap clean off.

Hermione sighed, and the muscles in Bucky's arms coiled tight all the way up his neck. He clearly didn't like her lack of nervousness in the face of his muggle weapon.

And she wasn't- nervous, that is. Not as long as she had her wand in her hand.

"Honestly," She tried again, looking up to meet his dark glower with truthful eyes. "I really just want to get somewhere where I can call my friend. I'm not looking to fight. I'm not controlling you- I swear it."

He looked wholly unconvinced, and he took another aggressive step towards her; his heavy combat boots crunching dead leaves and twigs beneath him. Hermione debated the merits of standing up from her heap on the ground, but discarded the notion.

She didn't want to give Bucky any more reason to think putting a bullet in her was a good idea- even if he wouldn't be successful. The pressure of her wand was reassuring as it pinched her skin, and she knew if it came to it she could probably just knock him out.

It would be easier to disapparate, but there was no way she was going do that infront of a muggle. She wasn't stupid. Besides, she wasn't familiar with any apparition points in America, she'd never even been to America. (She had of course read extensively on it, but that wasn't the same thing.)

She had no idea how she'd even gotten here in the first place! Maybe the magic from the book had gone haywire? It was a possibility, magical artifacts only became more finicky with age.

Bucky's gun made an ominous clicking sound that had her attention narrowing back on him with pinpoint understanding.

Right then: option two.

" _Stupefy!"_

A flash of red and he crumpled, but Hermione had miscalculated slightly when he landed in a way that set his gun off with a resounding _bang!_

Bark exploded off the side of the tree behind her as the bullet whizzed past, and a flock of birds set off with a myriad of angry screeching from the treetops above them. Her hair lifted slightly in its wake, and Hermione let out a trill of nervous laughter in the echoing silence that followed.

Her attention quickly turned back out towards the pastures when a cry of "What in blazes was that!" drifted over.

She eyed the crumpled man, and debated leaving him there for the muggle farmer to find.

Bucky though, didn't exactly present the image of someone who wanted to be found, and he had been genuine in his own actions with his offer to help show her the way. She bit back a tired and resigned sigh. Damn, it looked like she wouldn't be getting any sleep for a little while longer.

* * *

Bucky was moving before he'd even realized he was awake, on his feet and a knife pulled from his boot in the absence of his gun. He searched for the strange girl- Hermione, in the small room he found himself in but she was nowhere in sight.

The sun was setting between the drawn curtains of a nearby window, he pulled them aside gently to be sure. He'd lost at least three or four hours then, if the sun was anything to go by.

He found his gun laying innocuously on an end table next to the ragged bed that he'd jumped from. He leaned to scoop up his preferred weapon, guard still up and ready if someone thought to take advantage and throw him off balance.

Even if he was sure the barren room was empty of anyone besides himself.

He found a bit of paper folded neatly beneath the barrel and he eyed it suspiciously before picking it up with one last visual sweep of his unfamiliar surroundings.

He unfolded it with unsure fingers, confused by this turn of events.

 _Bucky,_

 _I apologize for disrupting your day, I really wasn't looking to fight. Please understand I wouldn't have knocked you out if diplomacy had gotten me anywhere. I chose to bring you to this hotel room, because you seemed the sort that wasn't really interested in entertaining any company-_

He snorted at the understatement.

 _-and I think you'll find your gun is missing a bullet. It fired when you landed on it. Unfortunately for the both of us, it attracted a bit of attention._

 _So, here you are, and I am probably long gone by now._

 _Just one last thing, I was going to alter your memories of our encounter-_

His breath hitched with an emotion he really didn't care to identify just then.

 _But I found that your mind is… a bit of a mess as it is, and I didn't want to risk any further damage. You're welcome, by the way._

 _As long as you keep my secrets, James, I will keep yours._

 _The girl you've never met,_

 _H._

 _P.S. I left you with a gift, as an apology. I'm sure it will come to you sooner or later._

Bucky carefully placed the bit of thick paper- parchment? On the floor before procuring a lighter from his pocket and setting it on fire. (A part of him relished the action) As it curled smoke into the air, he let the implied threat of his given name sink in. Yea, there was no way he was going to let some random woman wander around with information like that. Not with Hydra still looking for him. And SHIELD. And the general populace as a whole actually.

As for her gift… it didn't take long for the faded and long forgotten memories to begin resurfacing.

Thankfully, they were all pleasant ones from a time long past. It was a bittersweet gift, he decided much later.

He was quietly grateful nonetheless.

* * *

Hermione's mind whirled, information, explanations, excuses. Anything that might explain _why_ , when she was so sure it was supposed to be right here, that the entrance to the American Ministry of Magic appeared to be… missing.

Maybe she had gotten the location wrong?

Once more, she flipped through the information she knew as if it were the pages of a well loved book. No, she was absolutely certain it should be here.

With a hand to shade her eyes from the glaring sun, Hermione looked up, and up and up at the tall Woolworth building in downtown New York.

She was sure this was it, but as far as she could tell, there wasn't even a sliver of magic on this building. No disillusioned entrance or exit, no designated apparition points, nothing.

For all that she could tell, it was just a regular bank with muggles making their way in and out, bustling around without any sort of notice or care as she stood on the front steps three seconds away from having a mental breakdown.

(She really didn't have time for that though.)

And it had taken forever to get to this side of the country too, damn near six days of non stop travel.

Hermione stepped forward and made her way up the stairs, joining the mass of people going about their day as if she had never been separated from them at all. As she jammed herself into the turnstile next to a woman carrying a fussy toddler, she caught sight of her… traveling companion (Read: Stalker) for a split second before she was stepping into the grand marble room packed full of disgruntled muggles vying for the attention of equally disgruntled employees.

She wasn't sure if Bucky thought he was being sneaky, or if he was fully aware that she knew he was following her. She'd bet a galleon it was probably the latter though.

Her trip to this state would have been halved if she hadn't been wasting so much time trying to shake him off. A few detours, some appearance changes, but whenever she did manage to loose him, whether for a few hours or a whole day, he somehow managed to end up right back on track with her.

It was frustrating beyond belief.

Hermione palmed her wand in her jacket pocket, and made her way around the edges of the grand lobby. She eyed a likely looking painting for a few minutes, and then a teller booth with an old 'Out of Order' sign on it, but eventually she sighed; empty handed after all.

"Well." She said to herself, accidently calling the attention of an impatient ten year old sitting on the bench next to her. She flashed the boy a smile and decided it would be better to make more concerted effort to stop talking to herself in public.

She made her way back out onto the stairs again, weaving in between people with a deep frown and shadowed eyes.

If she couldn't procure a portkey she'd have to take the muggle way to London, and unfortunately she had no muggle money. And she certainly wasn't stupid enough to try to use magic to get her way through airport security; that was just begging for a one way ticket to Azkaban.

Her enchanted coat pockets boasted a nice amount of instant darkness powder, some food stuffs with preservation charms, a few (more than strictly necessary) books, and of course wizarding money among some other odds and ends. But that only led her right back around to the portkey issue. If there was no ministry here, there was no one to exchange her galleons to dollars. As far as she had been aware, the American equivalent of Gringotts had been located right here along with their ministry officials.

 _But_ a tentative voice spoke up in the back of her mind as she ambled her way down the grand steps back towards the street, hands shoved deep into her jacket pockets and bushy brown hair curling about her face. _What if there is no wizarding London, there certainly appears to be no wizarding America._

She stopped dead in her tracks, stunned at her own thought process. Someone bumped into her from behind and grouched at her for stopping foot traffic with a few choice words. Hermione didn't even register the stranger.

Hermione had come here through _Magics of Asgard_ , and from there a very suspicious tunnel made of wood that was full of Aesir magic.

What if this was Asgard's Midgard? What if this wasn't her world at all?

"Oh, no." and didn't that about sum it up.

It certainly explained the lack of magic _anywhere._ Entire ministries don't just up and move shop one day for a better window view.

"Okay, okay," She pepped to herself, resuming her trek on the inside of the sidewalk path. Hermione headed back towards the bus graveyard in a quiet suburb where she had set up shop, she could figure this out once she had somewhere quiet to think.

"Could probably disapparate then." She murmured to herself, the sound of her voice completely drowned out by passing cars slamming on their horns and thousands of people talking and moving around her all at once.

If there was no American ministry to keep track of illegal apparition, then she could probably jump around as she pleased, as long as she knew the location of course. If there even was a wizarding London, by some slim chance, then it might have the added bonus of garnering their attention as well. Which would be a boon at this point, she decided.

She'd try to stay away from calling too much attention to herself from the muggles though, just in case. Apparition laws were one thing, the Statute of Secrecy was on an entirely different level of, 'You're in Trouble Now.' not that she hadn't buggered that up well and good already by letting Bucky keep his memories. Still, she felt no guilt on that. Hermione wasn't going to risk giving that poor man brain damage.

She shook her head sadly at the thought.

Muggles had no idea how to properly wipe a memory without screwing everything up. They should really leave those kinds of things well alone. Besides, from the brief glimpses she'd gotten from him, Bucky seemed to have been through enough without her sticking her fingers in his memories too.

If it was going to be a problem later, she'd just present it as a choice between committing serious bodily harm to a muggle or choosing to walk away and let him make his own conclusions. It's not like she'd told him anything anyways, and she highly doubted the man was looking to go around telling people stories and calling unwanted attention to himself.

"Hey!" The shout startled her, and she cursed silently at her wandering thoughts that had led her to step out onto the crosswalk during a red light.

The cabbie that was shouting at her from his window slammed on his horn for emphasis as he spat at her. Hermione stepped backwards quickly, up onto the sidewalk and out of the street. She managed to wedge herself into the crowd without too much trouble.

"Rude." She commented to herself, earning an undignified snort of amusement from the man standing beside her. She looked over, surprised.

"Bucky." She greeted him, how had she managed to get distracted enough to not notice him _right next to her?_

Hermione decided then, that she was really lacking a good night's sleep.

Dark eyes framed by lanky brown hair slid down to meet her much shorter stature. He wore a dark red ball cap and the brim did it's job to shadow most of his face.

For being a large, grungy looking man he did nondescript fairly well. "Hermione." He returned lowly. It wasn't exactly a friendly tone, but it wasn't unfriendly either.

The light changed, and the signal tone heralded the movement of the waiting crowd as people pushed forward, heedless of the slight woman who was feeling off kilter to begin with.

Bucky followed without a word, he followed her for the entire three miles it took to get back to the chained in lot that contained the buses she'd been headed for.

She supposed three miles wasn't all that much compared to the three thousand miles he'd managed to track her so far. Maybe it just felt different this time because he was walking shoulder to shoulder with her, his much longer stride slowed accommodatingly to keep pace with her.

She eyed him warily for a moment, and then the padlock on the gate she needed to open. He rose an eyebrow at her hesitance but continued to keep his silence.

"Right," She said lowly with a resigned sigh, "Just keep these things to yourself." She added with one more sweep of the area, which Bucky mirrored. The sun was still high on the horizon, it was probably mid afternoon, but her instincts and visual acuity told her that the two of them were alone on the abandoned and little-used side street.

Her sentinal seemed to agree, because his dark eyes came back around to rest on her, his features slack and eyes blank. He gave nothing away like the professional she was sure he was.

She brought her wand out, ignoring the way Bucky's arms tensed reflexively. (even the metal one, fascinating how it mimicked flesh so well)

"Alohomora." The lock popped open with little protest despite its age. She'd unlocked it a few times already and most of the rust had sloughed off with its first use.

"That's some kind of magic isn't it." Her ever silent companion grumped for the first time. She gave him a sideways look but didn't answer. He looked even more sour at her lack of anything to say; that was probably all the answer he needed.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" He changed the subject as they weaved smoothly between old car shells and piles of tires. He seemed to know where they were headed just as well as she did, and Hermione bit her lip in irritation. He must have managed to shadow her just about everywhere.

"No." She finally sighed.

She had tried the Point Me spell a few times, but it wasn't really meant for use over an area the space of an entire country. Or planet, as it were. She didn't even know what country Thor was in, or even what _age_ he was for that matter. Thor could still be a little boy at this point.

So the spell gave her a direction, and the best she could do was head that way, but it didn't really tell her _where_ he was exactly.

Hermione waved her wand in front of the sliding doors to the only bus that still sported cushions on its benches, and the Notice-Me-Not charm slithered away.

Bucky's eyes snapped forward, but Hermione had seen the way he's been squinting in an attempt to look at it. That was the downside of Notice-Me-Not charms, if a muggle already knew the thing was there, it just became a little more difficult for them to look at; it didn't erase their knowledge that it existed.

The man at her side let out a breath, she wasn't sure what emotion trailed it but he followed her up the steps into the bus without further comment.

"So-," She began, sitting herself down on the first bench, relieved to be out of the blazing sun. Hermione gathered her hair together and lifted it off the back of her neck after shrugging out of her hoodie. "Hey, hand me that washer on the floor will you," she interrupted herself.

Bucky stepped forward and plucked the little round piece of metal off the floor and dropped it into her open palm without touching her. He sat down on the bench across from her, folding bulky muscles with surprising grace.

"Thanks." With one hand still attempting to contain her wild mass of hair she used her free one to transfigure herself a hair tie. She pulled the brown curls high up to get some air on her neck and tied it as securely as she could without snapping the band.

"Anyways," She continued, only to stop again when she noticed that his attention was tracing the scarred letters on her forearm. Her palm covered as much of it as she could on reflex before she forced herself to relax. She shrugged her hoodie back on though, despite the roiling heat. A simple cooling charm would take care of that anyways, and she'd have to stick with the hoodie until she could get a hold of some bandages to wrap her arm in. It was odd how her priorities skewed with that particular brand from the war; she'd rather people assume she was injured than ask her uncomfortable questions.

"Don't recognize the word but it doesn't seem like a nice thing to say." He commented offhandedly, as if trying to defuse the tension that had sprung up between them. It was a nice gesture on his part, she registered dimly.

"It's not." and she was proud to say her voice was even. He nodded, and that subject too, was quickly dropped.

"Why are you following me." She sighed without preamble this time, leaning back into the window so she could stretch her legs out across the bench.

"You know who I am." He said, but it sounded like that wasn't the whole thing to her. She quirked a brow but he held her gaze steady. "And I'm curious." He finally capitulated. Hermione nodded, relenting to his half truths and letting him keep them. He hadn't outright lied but she knew that was probably the most she was going to get of his motivations.

Besides, she wasn't eager to go spilling everything to him, she could allow him the same courtesy. As long as his plans didn't involved murdering her, or exposing her to the general populace.

"You don't have somewhere you need to be?" She questioned curiously by way of offering a change of subject.

"No."

And damn if that one word didn't sound heavy coming from his lips. He rested his forearms on his thighs and leaned forward onto them, the curve of his back disrupted only by the slightly odd angle of his shoulder blades.

Hermione looked at him, really looked at him for the first time outside of assessing his threat level. He looked tired, worn. Confused. Maybe even a bit lost in that moment.

Yea, she could empathize.

"Well," She said tiredly, eyes drooping slightly as she bit back a yawn. "You're welcome to come along instead of skulking around behind me. I could use the company."

He didn't say anything, but he didn't move to leave either and that was answer enough for the witch.

* * *

Loki was not pleased.

In fact, he was pretty irritated at this point. Hermione had somehow managed to slip into Midgard by way of Yggdrasil's roots, how she'd even found the path he wasn't sure, but leaving the Realm Eternal took her out of his reach for now.

He wasn't willing to abandon the years of work he'd put into getting where he was now, and relinquishing his role as Odin to go traipsing down to Midgard would do him no favors.

He gritted his back teeth, vexed with how she'd managed to slip from his fingers when she'd only just returned. He could always send someone down, Sif maybe, to go find her but he wasn't particular to the idea of exposing her magic to Asgard at this juncture. No, if he was going to return her to Asgard it needed to be quietly, so as not to arouse any unwanted questions.

He wasn't even sure if his illusion would fool her, and the last thing he wanted was to be exposed by another arcane user.

So Loki did what Loki did best, he sat back to bide his time despite the impatience that curled in his belly and the pounding of his heart at the thought of her wandering into any number of… unsavory situations among the mortals.

No, this simply would not do.

Odin forbid she managed to walk straight into his idiot brother somehow. That might be even worse. The idea of Thor spouting off about what had transpired with the Chitauri made a feeling he didn't care to analyse crawl up his throat.

Thor's disappointed gaze was one thing. Hermione's… well that was a beast of another breed.

* * *

Hermione stared at the TV on display in the shop window as a murmur of alarm swept through the gathered crowd.

" _Reports are suggesting some kind of jet propulsion technology that has managed to lift the entire city into the air-"_

"Oh Merlin." Hermione breathed eyes wide, Bucky's hand reached over to grasp her upper arm, pulling her attention away from the reporter for a moment. He pulled the brim of his hat lower, and leaned in close to murmur into her ear.

"We need to be moving, I think we're being tailed."

Her eyes swept the area immediately, surprised that anyone might be paying attention to them during the ongoing events in Sokovia. There were too many people pressing forward, and Hermione wasn't exactly the tallest woman around so she trusted Bucky's intuition on this one and let him lead them through the hoards of people piling up in front of the TV display window.

" _The Avengers are on scene at this time-"_ She didn't catch the rest as they moved away.

She trotted to keep up and they turned a sharp corner. Hermione made to pull her wand out but Bucky stopped her again, his hand clamping down around her wrist in a motion that made her feel nostalgic for haughty little godlings.

"Not yet."

Her nerves escalated, was their follower that close? Close enough to see her wand?

She took another cursory glance around and zeroed in on two men across the street from them, easily keeping up with Bucky's quicker-than-the-average-citizen pace.

They wore blue jeans and leather jackets, even in the heat. Hermione knew from personal experience that the only reason someone wore too many layers in hot weather was if they had something to hide.

Probably guns in their pursuers case.

"Who are they?" She asked while averting her gaze quickly so they didn't notice her looking.

"I don't know." Hermione blinked at his blatant lie, but let it go. She'd probably find out sooner or later anyways.

Bucky turned another sharp corner and Hermione would have tripped if he hadn't been keeping a death grip on her wrist. She could see the edge of panic in his eyes. He wasn't thinking clearly, she realized.

"C'mon." She hissed and used his grip on her to drag him down a dark, dead end alley. She whipped out her wand while the two of them were its only occupants. A quick disillusionment charm, followed by a Notice-Me-Not had the familiar sensation of an egg being cracked over her head. She saw Bucky shudder uncomfortably next to her, and she held a finger to her lips.

The spell would hide them visibly, but it didn't do much of anything for sound.

He nodded in understanding, just as the two men turned the corner at a quick trot. They paused when they found an empty, dead end alley.

"I know I saw him come this way!" The taller of the two told his companion.

"Yea." The other man agreed, wary eyes sweeping the shadow darkened bricks that were presented to them. "That girl too." He added, and Hermione tensed right along with Bucky at the footnote.

The taller man lifted a hand to his ear, and Hermione saw a little tiny green dot of light flash underneath his fingers before he began to speak.

"We've lost the asset." He said, and Hermione startled when Bucky jerked to grab his gun with his free hand.

She snatched his wrist before he could pull it out, making a strange circuit between them as he held onto her and she held onto him. Hermione shook her head in the negative, and wasn't sure if he understood or not, but he didn't seem ready to move so she gave his wrist a reassuring squeeze.

The look on his face was a feral, wild expression.

Like a cornered animal.

"Yes sir, I understand sir." The taller man was still talking, and she bit her lip in consternation to realize she'd been too distracted with Bucky to catch most of what he'd been saying. "Hail Hydra." He finished and Bucky's muscles wound up tight like a rubber band ready to snap.

The two men turned, "What'd the boss say?" The shorter man asked as they turned out of sight and down the street.

It took a good ten minutes before Bucky started to relax again, but Hermione stuck with it and gave him the time he needed to calm down. This wasn't her first rodeo after all, she'd done this for friends before; during the war. It was an unpleasant but familiar gesture of companionship.

When his shoulders loosened enough to regain their natural slump, Hermione slowly let go of his wrist, and he did the same to hers.

"I can't stay here." He informed her in a low tone, and she nodded in understanding.

"We should probably leave the country for now." He blinked in surprise. Up until now, it had been him following her, now it would be the other way around. He probably hadn't expected her to want to go with him.

She shrugged in answer to the unasked question. "It's not like I'm any closer to figuring out where my friend is." He nodded in understanding, something undefinable in his expression.

Hermione thought it might have been relief, but Bucky was an intensely private man and trying to gauge his emotions sometimes felt like an invasion of that privacy so she chose not to think too hard on it.

"Not anywhere near Sokovia though." She added wryly, she hadn't seen much of the goings-on but it didn't look like anything either one of them would be interested in getting caught up in.

His lips quirked. "Yeah, good plan."

Two days later found them stowed away on a freight ship headed for Portugal.

* * *

Clint rubbed his temples tiredly as he slumped into the overstuffed couch that seemed determined to swallow him whole. He wasn't sure he even had the energy to protest it right now.

The new Avengers compound was a lot smaller than when it had been located at Stark Tower, Clint kind of preferred the nice, flat-on-the-ground warehouse compared to the made-entirely-of-glass skyscraper though. Things with less windows were a lot easier to defend from attack, and they seemed to garner a lot of that particular brand of attention lately.

"She's not your witch right?" Tony broke the first relaxing quiet they'd had in days to point at the red haired woman who was slumped bonelessly in the love seat.

Thor looked over at Wanda, who seemed uncomfortable under his regard- or maybe at Tony's question- and then back over at Tony who was attempting for force a badly dented and burnt metal plate from around his shin. It made an awful squealing noise as pieces of the machine attempted to remove themselves from around the man's leg.

"No." Thor said tiredly. "The Lady Hermione is a sorceress, a user of the arcane."

"I'm a mutant." Wanda said without looking at any of them in a flat, accented tone.

"Right." Natasha drawled the word just as flatly as she fell into the couch next to him. Clint knew her well enough to know she got irritable when she was tired, it probably wasn't anything personal. Banner's disappearance wasn't helping anything either, actually.

"Do you remember what she looks like? If we could get an image profile I can set up a program to search the CCTV cameras." Tony offered amicably with a following grunt as he finally tore off the defective metal that was deterring the removal of the piece as a whole.

"I am willing to try." Thor folded his arms, hammer tucking into the crook of his elbow with the movement.

Vision floated into the room then, yellow cape trailing behind him like fabric made from liquid.

"I can assist you in this endeavor," a quick sweep over the occupants in the room and he added, "After we have all gotten some rest."

Steve was already snoring on the far end of the couch, his head tilted back and his forearm covering his eyes.

Clint was sure they all looked as bad as they felt.

Thor unfolded his arms and used his free hand to comb his bangs away from his face. "I will contact the Lady Jane in the meantime." And with that he was sweeping out of the room.

* * *

Hermione sneezed, and Bucky's attention snapped over at the sudden sound.

"Don't get sick on me now." He berated in a low tone. They shifted in their crouched positions and ran together past the next line of cargo boxes, ducking low to avoid any undue attention.

They were definitely not supposed to be here.

"Just some dust or something." She assured in a returned whisper, and he nodded in acknowledgement.

They both ducked lower past the edge of a crate when the sweep a flashlight went overhead. They continued towards the fence after the guard's footsteps carried him away. Bucky looked up the ridiculously tall chain link fence with a pinched expression before looking back down at her wild curl framed features.

"You think you can climb that high?" She knew he wasn't asking out of some misplaced sense of misogyny, but the suggestion was just so… muggle. She couldn't help the crinkle around her eyes as she grinned up at him.

He looked slightly taken aback at her expression, but Hermione didn't notice as she pulled her wand from her hoodie pocket and tapped the chain links. They leapt away from the point of contact, untangling themselves and peeling open like a ripe fruit.

"After you," She hummed a bit smugly. He brushed past her and she followed quickly behind, the fence molded itself back together seamlessly after them.

"Convenient." He murmured appreciatively as they made quick work of striding down the night darkened hill towards the street below. They straightened together, adopting the stride of people who knew exactly where they were and exactly where they were going.

Even if that was nothing close to the truth.

* * *

Bucky had known from his first experience with Hermione that she was no stranger to the darker side of life. She moved with the kind of paranoid grace that suited his own mentality; the kind of person who cataloged how many exits a room had and where the line of sight through the window led.

Unlike him however, he knew she had become accustomed, in whatever battles or war she had fought, to standing alongside allies. Bucky had only ever been a trump card, a final option to be sent out alone. It was a strange thing to get used to and her innate behavior had given him pause more than once.

It was in the way her stance subconsciously copied his, the way she was hyper aware of what he was looking at, what he was paying attention to, and then her subsequent match for that to make sure all areas were covered. Even his expressions and emotions. If something made him wary or unsure it was like she plucked that knowledge from thin air and immediately began searching for the threat he had already begun assessing.

It was a strange show of trust and he wasn't sure what to really think of it.

Hermione had a tendency to walk in such a way that turning back to back would only be a pivot away. She avoided his dominant arm, giving it a certain amount of space that suggested she was used to standing next to others who held weapons like hers. A sort of distance that suggested an extension past his wrist that might come with the use of a long knife- or wand.

His metal arm though, she seemed at a loss as to what to think of it. Hermione was far better suited for long distance than he. Bucky had basically been engineered, physically and mentally, to get inside his targets personal space.

That didn't mean she was any less capable however.

No.

Bucky had seen Hermione do things that had potential applications that made his skin crawl.

Fire from nothing, lifting and moving objects without touching them, he'd once seen her make a dish sponge sentient enough to wash plates in their hotel sink by itself. This wasn't even counting the things he'd seen her do that were actually battle capable- disillusionment; her strange spell that made the eyes of others slide past without acknowledgment, her ability to unlock damn near anything she wanted, and he knew this wasn't even the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

No, Bucky had a very healthy respect for the things Hermione was capable of- and potentially capable of.

He had begun his assumptions that her wand was what allowed her to break reality around them, but eventually he reevaluated it to consider that she was capable without it, and the wand itself was only a medium for her power.

He came to this new conclusion on a day she had been distracted. He'd watched her open her palm and her wand leap into it from clear across the room. So she _was_ capable of magic without it, probably a limited amount but still preferred to use the wand than not.

Simply removing the medium from her person probably wouldn't be enough to devalue her threat level. If he really wanted to disarm her he'd have to contain the wand somewhere else, and even then he wasn't sure if he could ever _truly_ call her harmless. Hermione was a dangerous creature, made all the more so by her experiences. She was tempered by war; Bucky could see it all over her.

The things Hydra could do with someone as powerful as her… but he stubbornly chose not to think about this; although he did allow himself to acknowledge it. It would be a terrible idea to completely pretend they wouldn't want to get their hands on her, and Bucky knew now that they'd seen her in his company they were probably already asking questions.

It was these thoughts that came to mind when he woke in the middle of the night before he even knew what it was that had put him on high alert.

There was an eerie sort of light in the tiny hotel room, a place they had taken up residence just inside the border of France. A neon sign that declared the word 'vacancy' in hot red splashed across the stained carpet through the slitted blinds. He could hear cars coming to a stop at the traffic light outside before driving off a moment later.

Bucky sat up on the little two person couch and listened. If something had pulled him from sleep, then he trusted that something was off. He noted that the deadbolt to the door was still turned, that there were no shadows cast at the bottom beneath the worn weather stripping.

The AC kicked on with a dull hum, and Buckys hand moved towards his handgun tucked inside the couch at his back on reflex.

And then he heard it.

A exhalation of breath that was a bit too quick to count as anything peaceful, followed by a hiss of agitation like a cornered and pissed off cat.

Bucky looked over to find Hermione had kicked the covers off the single twin bed and they lay crumpled on the floor. Her fingers dug furrows into the sheets beneath her, clutching to the mattress for dear life.

Ah, he knew what this was.

Bucky slid his feet to the floor silently, and padded quickly over to her side, as close as he would allow himself to come for now.

His eyes searched for her wand. It was a terrible idea to wake a soldier from a nightmare in general, especially an armed one. He found the handle of it peeking out from beneath her pillow, and with extreme caution Bucky plucked it from her reach and tossed it inside the mini fridge the room had come with. Hopefully keeping it contained inside something would keep it from leaping into her hand.

"Hermione," He called softly, and almost winced at how loud it sounded as the AC turned off right as he had spoken. She turned her face into her pillow, her features scrunching up in a way he didn't think could mean anything good.

One hand clapped over where he knew her scar was- the one she never talked about and perpetually kept hidden beneath her hoodie.

Ah, that kind of dream then.

"Hermione," He tried again, softer this time. "The date is June seventh, the year is twenty-sixteen."

She groaned, turning again and her shirt rode dangerously high on her stomach. Bucky chose to ignore this, although he didn't miss it. She murmured something and he found himself stepping closer towards the edge of the bed despite his better judgement.

"Hermione, it's Bucky." He reminded her, trying to pull her from whatever unpleasant memory she was experiencing.

" _Deatheater."_ She hissed so vehemently he almost took a step backwards. He didn't though, too tempered for the display of weakness. He didn't recognize the word, as was the case with many of the terms she spoke but the images conjured by a thing called death eater weren't exactly pleasant ones.

"Hermione." He murmured, softening his tone to something he hoped was nonthreatening.

And then he made this mistake of touching the exposed skin of her nondominant arm.

The next three seconds was a flurry of movement.

She sat up straight, eyes flying wide and Bucky could see the wild, blind panic inside them as her hands shot out to grasp his neck in a fierce grip that belied her delicate fingers. He choked, rearing back in an attempt to break her hold but she followed him forward, pitching her weight into his and using her added height from the top of the bed to topple him onto the floor.

She landed hard on his chest, her small weight earnestly throwing everything she had into crushing his windpipe, her calves and thighs pressing his upper arms into the floor. Her hair was just as wild as her eyes and Bucky dimly registered the blue sparks that arched off its waves in a show of uncontrolled magic.

" _Fuck your blood supremacy!"_ She hissed at him nonsensically, and Bucky, for all his good intentions should have known he was not mentally healthy enough to confront this kind of situation without it escalating. He rolled them in a second flat, and her wrists were in his hands as he pinned her down before he even realized he had reacted to her as a potential combatant.

She _howled_.

Her fingers curled constantly towards her palms even as he held her down, his center of gravity over hers in an instinctual play for the upper hand. She pushed against him, throwing her hips forward and kicking her legs until he was forced to sit his full weight on her pelvis to get her to stop fighting him. His legs tangled with hers and he received a few good kicks in the shin for his effort.

He blinked, coming back to himself and loosed his grip enough to make it firm but not painful.

"Hermione," He tried to sooth as she snapped her teeth together. His voice came out a bit strained, understandably. "The date is June seventh, in the year twenty-sixteen. We are in Urrugne, France."

She blinked, pupils blown wide in confusion, heaving with breaths that made his attention want to wander if it wasn't for the situation.

"You told me your grandmother was from a province close to here, I made you tea today and you told me it was terrible." She blinked, lips turning down at the corners.

The AC kicked on again with a low hum.

"Bucky?" She whispered in the sudden calm, confused.

He nodded, brown hair swishing forward to form a curtain around them as he held her eyes.

He slowly let up, a frown tugging at his lips as he noticed the heavy bruising around her wrists. Guilt crashed against him like waves against the shore and he averted his eyes, unable to met her gaze as he removed himself from her person. So much for trying to help.

She slowly sat up as well, looking a crumpled mess and more than a little bit lost as she watched him start to move away.

Her hand shot up to grab his, and his eyes snapped back to her, startled by the movement.

She chewed her lips, eyes looking anywhere but at him.

"Could you just-" She stopped to take a shuttering breath. "Just. Stay, just for a minute."

Bucky looked at her small fingers curling around his, her flushed face and wild hair.

"Yeah," He decided aloud, bringing himself back down to sit next to her. She didn't move closer, she didn't move at all. She just sat staring at the closed blinds of their window taking even, measured breaths.

She didn't let go of his hand though, and Bucky found himself overly aware of the skin contact despite how little it was compared to a moment before.

She didn't talk about it, and he didn't ask.

He'd just stay as long as she needed.

* * *

It took all of three seconds to get a hit. Then another, and another and another until Tony had to mute the computer to get it to stop pinging at them.

"Woah," Tony exclaimed, completely surprised. "Looks like your girls been busy." He pulled up the first photo of a woman; mud caked and filthy with an exhausted expression on her face, looking up into the night sky on a corner of a town in the middle of nowhere Oregon.

Thor looked excited, blue eyes sparkling at their quick success.

"You sure that's her?" Steve asked, "She doesn't look very… witchy." Thor's expression morphed into one of confusion, and Steve was quick to amend himself. "Ah, you know what, nevermind."

Tony swiped across his image display to the next photo. "This is in New York, six days after the first image."

She stood on a long set of stone stairs leading up to a bank in Manhattan, still in a sea of movement. She looked… lost.

The three of them frowned.

Tony swiped to the next photo.

No one said a word for a moment, unsure of what to think of the image presented to them on the holographic screen.

Hermione looked startled, wide eyed and a bit fevered as her hair curled about her features in a disheveled mess. A man in a low ballcap kept a tight grip around her upper arm. He was dragging her away from a crowd of people clustered about the front of a TV shop.

They couldn't see his features, but it certainly didn't look good.

"This was farther south, closer to Norfolk." Tony noted softly for lack of anything better to say.

The next image was of her with the same man, both of their heads ducked low, the man's ballcap once again hiding his features but his possessive hand bowing her head forward was not as successful in hiding her from the CCTV above them.

Thor made a sound not unlike an animal growling.

The two stood at the back of a line of people preparing to load cargo onto a boat. Tony's hands leapt for his keyboard and more boxes popped up to the left of the image that had arrested Thor's attention.

Tony swiped away a few useless boxes before settling on one and quickly reading through it. "Portugal. It was headed for Portugal about three days ago." He announced, and swiped to the next picture.

It was a small cafe, baren of people in what seemed to be the middle of the night, probably just before closing. This one was a short video, courtesy of the shop's security camera in a corner behind the counter.

"France." Tony said unnecessarily; they could all see the capture notes in the side box.

He pressed the space key and the image leapt into action. She disappeared from the inside the shop, the video starting from about twelve seconds prior to the enlarged thumbnail image.

She stood outside the glass door, nodding along with a serious expression to someone they couldn't see. She gave a wane smile, tired and drawn before turning to push the door open, a little bell hanging from the V hinge chimed quietly, and a young man, probably in his teens greeted her from the counter in French.

She responded in stilted uncertain French, but the young man seemed to appreciate her efforts to speak his native language and nodded along patiently.

"Can we get a translator up." and at Tony's command words began to arrange themselves at the bottom of the screen.

" _Can I get two coffee for home, please."_ Hermione asked with broken fluency.

" _What kind?"_ The teenager responded kindly, already moving to grab two to-go cups.

" _Uhm, black is good."_ As the employee moved quickly to fill her order she turned slightly away from the camera to look back towards the front windows. She smiled tiredly again to whoever was waiting and turned back when the boy placed two cups in her open hands.

She dropped a large pile of change on the counter, and a brief annoyed look crossed the kids face as she turned to go.

" _Thank you."_ The door chimed as she left, and a man stepped away from the shadows to take one of the cups from her, presenting his profile to the camera as he looked slightly down on Hermione from his taller height.

Steve's breath caught in his throat.

"Bucky?" He choked.

* * *

AN: Thanks to everyone for sticking with me so far, I'd love to hear your thoughts, comments and anything you might have to say on the story so far; so please feel free to leave a review.

This work has been Beta-ed by: Wistfuldaydream

Part Three will go up when it comes out of Beta, and Part Four after that. There might or might not be a part five at this point I'm not sure yet. I suppose we'll see.


	3. Part Three

_ii._

 **A Million Candles Burning**

Part Three

* * *

Hermione swirled her teacup, watching the dregs swish around to follow the circumference of the ceramic at the bottom. There was a book on the table in front of her, but once again she found her mind too occupied to try and read at the moment. It was a pity too; she thought that if she could manage to concentrate it might be an interesting read.

The library cafe she inhabited was on the smaller side, but most things were like that in France. Especially in the city.

It was getting late, but not so late that she would need to replace her book on the shelf yet.

It was in moments like these that she let her current situation catch up with her. She could put up a good front while they were on the move, when she had things to focus on and a goal to achieve. She suspected Bucky knew though; it was in the way he looked at her from the corner of his eye when he thought she wouldn't notice.

The reality of the world that had swept her up was always waiting, just on the edges of her thoughts for a quiet moment to sink in.

There was no Wizarding America, no Wizarding London. Hell, there was no Wizarding World at all.

Hermione was the only magical on this entire planet.

And that was… well. It felt akin to being in a room packed full of people and yet still somehow being completely alone.

Hermione made a small, strangled noise low in her throat and had she been looking she would have seen Bucky turn to look at her from a shelf at the back of the shop.

There was no Harry, or Ron here. No Hogwarts, no magical creatures or potions ingredients, no Diagon Alley to make a quick stop and pick up something she might need. She was totally alone, surrounded by muggle technology and muggle culture. Which wasn't completely awful, she was a muggleborn after all, but she had long ago accepted that she had come to expect a certain quality of life within the magical community.

Hell, if her wand ever broke… she didn't even want to think about it. Sure, Hermione was capable of simple spells without it, very simple spells, but it would be like losing a limb and a very large repertoire of magic on top of that.

She put her teacup down with the muted clack of ceramic on wood and reached a hand up to rub her forehead.

There was no war and no blood supremacy here either, she reminded herself. She wasn't a war hero here; she wasn't the crazy shut-in who lacked the ability to coalesce back into society. She was just…

Hermione.

Friend to Bucky Barnes, the witch out of place.

She wasn't even sure finding Thor and Loki would solve her problems at this point because everything was just so much more problematic than being trapped in an alternative dimension.

Hermione was a bit messed up, it didn't really matter where she was because her location didn't change the fact that she had baggage.

"Hey." Bucky's voice had her looking up as he sat himself next to her. His gloved hands folded in his lap as his eyes swept the empty shop in front of them.

"Everything alright?" He murmured a little lower.

Something in his demeanor, more than his words, made her feel a little better. The stiff set of his shoulders, the way his fingers twitched towards his knife or gun without his notice. That sharp, calculating look in dark blue eyes.

Bucky was a dangerous man.

It wasn't so much that she felt safe with him, although that was a factor, it was more that she felt he was safe _from_ her.

And that meant something to Hermione.

"Do you ever feel like a wolf in a room full of dogs, almost the same but still not quite." She said more than asked without even really meaning to. Her cheeks pinked a moment later once she'd realized what she'd said.

Bucky stilled beside her, a pause in the rise and fall of his breathing, the fidget to his hands, the shift of his eyes.

She tilted her head up look at him, and she found his eyes already searching her. She had no idea what he was looking for, but there was something new to his features. Something soft she'd never seen on him before, something just a little bit open, just a little bit hopeful.

Maybe it meant something to Bucky too.

"Yea." He said finally, the word breathy. "Yea, it's like that." He agreed.

* * *

Hermione had always loved trains. They of course reminded her of better, easier days. School had always been a point of pride for her and she considered her time at Hogwarts some of her happiest.

Everything had changed during the war. A lot of people had…

She physically shook her head to dispel that line of thought.

The stranger who sat across from them, who she and Bucky shared a cabin with, continued to chatter on and Hermione decided that the muggle form of trains was a bit of a different experience than the wizarding kind.

Bucky sat uncomfortably at her side, shoulders stiff and head bowed over crossed arms. Clearly the elderly man who, to be fair, was being a bit familiar with them was the cause of his unease.

"Anyways my dear, you said you and your…" The man trailed off, eyeing what appeared to be her sleeping companion. (He was definitely not sleeping.)

"Brother." She offered, giving his knee a gentle pat. To his credit Bucky didn't move at the contact, but he did give her a sideways glance from under the brim of his hat. It was the first flash of amusement she'd seen from him since before Hydra had shown it's ugly arse.

"Yes, yes of course, brother."

The elderly man leered at her, and Hermione had to bite her lip and comfort herself with the touch of her wand inside her jacket pocket to keep her indignation in check.

Bucky's amusement faded, he couldn't see the man across from them but he could see the look on her face just fine. Hermione promised herself the next time she was in this situation that Bucky would be getting a promotion to husband. Not that marriage seemed to deter this man any, if the ring on his finger was anything to go by.

"You said you were from England, I've never been myself, I'm from Georgia, you know it's in the South, but I hear you English are the uptight kind of girls, tea and biscuits and all that."

Hermione didn't even try to resist rolling her eyes, but the man didn't seem to notice anyways. "Will you be visiting family in Germany? I'm going to meet my internet girlfriend, don't tell the wife." He winked, and it was then she decided she was entirely done making pleasantries with this man. Not that anything that had come out of his mouth was pleasant so far.

She held up her wrist and pushed her sleeve back a bit as if looking at an invisible watch, not even trying anymore.

"Oh! Would you look at the time, c'mon Ronald I think it's just about our stop." She got to her feet, tugging Bucky with her.

"But we're miles away from-" Hermione was already out the door, if she had looked back she would've seen the impressive scowl Bucky leveled at the man.

He followed behind her down the corridor until they found another empty cabin, and she held the sliding door open for him before slamming it shut with a murderous look.

"Of all the- disgusting- uhg!" She managed, and sat herself back down on a bench. Bucky fell into the one across from her, and they effectively spent the next five minutes spreading limbs about and taking up every available inch of space.

The silence was filled with the clack-clack of the tracks, and the rush of wind past the windows.

The sun would be coming up soon, but it was still too dark to see the scenery. Bucky had been keeping their travels to the darker hours available, and she couldn't disagree with that.

"I think we'll stop for a while in Germany." Her companion announced suddenly, and she lolled her head to the side to squint at him.

"Why?" He pulled the brim of his cap lower over his face, his horizontal position making it more difficult to hide his features if anyone decided to walk in on them.

"Staying on the move can be just as dangerous as staying in one place for too long." He told her, and she blinked.

"Alright." She agreed finally, it wasn't like she would know any better on how to hide from this organization that was after him- Hydra, he had called it. Hiding from muggles was a very different activity from hiding from wizards.

She didn't really know much about Bucky's situation. Just that this group 'Hydra' seemed to think he was a bit of their lost property, and she could infer the rest from the fragments of his memory she'd caught after their first meeting.

If a group of crazy people had been wiping her memories for years and brainwashing her to do their dirty work, she didn't think she'd be overly eager to be found either.

There was also the small detail of leaked internet information he had explained on the boat trip over.

Something about a group called SHIELD, which she thought was probably an acronym but for what she didn't know. Apparently Bucky's face had been all over the web for a time, and pretty much every government agency around would gladly give a limb to have a piece of him. Hermione could only guess at what kind of things he'd done while he'd been under Hydra's influence, but she knew it didn't involve tea with the Queen and rescuing lost dogs.

Hermione sighed quietly; his whole situation was so counter productive to what she needed- to be found. She just needed to be found by the right people. Mainly: Thor, or Loki. She wasn't sure she ever would be at this point. She'd seen nothing of magic in all the places they'd been so far, and she did recall the brothers' amazement that she was an 'arcane mortal' as they'd called her.

She really didn't need any attention from muggles though, and Bucky seemed amicable enough in taking her magic in stride. She didn't think she'd be so lucky with others. The Statue of Secrecy was there for a reason after all.

Even if there was no Wizarding World, no Ministry of Magic.

"What's got you down, doll?" Bucky asked in a low, tired voice without moving the cap so she could see his face. It came out a bit muffled for it.

"Just thinking about that friend." She told him honestly. "I'm not sure how to go about finding him, really."

"Can't you just," he lifted an arm lazily into the air to make a swish and flick gesture, one she was sure he only knew from watching her so closely. "You know, magic him up?"

She gave him a strained smile that he couldn't see.

"No." She said finally. "I can summon objects if they're close enough... but people, that's a bit different. I have a tracking spell but it's… vague at best." He did look at her then, pushing up the cap with a finger to pin her with dark, unreadable eyes from under its brim. It wasn't often she outright offered anything about what she was capable of; this was probably the first time. If the look on his face said anything, he acknowledged that fact.

"Ah, I see."

Silence fell again, and Hermione allowed herself to be lulled by the sound of the train running over the tracks, safe in the knowledge that if anything went awry she and Bucky would be able to handle it quick enough.

* * *

"He's a fugitive." Natasha said flatly.

"He's a _friend."_ Steve returned just as quickly.

"Just as the Lady Hermione is mine," Thor interrupted siding somewhere between the two arguments. "If this mortal poses some kind of a danger to her, he will be dealt with." Fingers tightening around the hilt of his lightning-summoning hammer answered clearly just how Thor liked to 'deal' with things.

"We don't even know what their relationship is yet, you can't just assume-" Steve rounded on the God of Thunder only for the Widow to cut him off.

"We don't even know if she's a threat herself, SHIELD isn't in the habit of letting unknowns wander around with God-only-knows-what kind of capabilities!"

Tony added his two cents to the brewing anger management issues, "News flash, SHIELD isn't really a thing anymore."

"I'm sure the Avengers will be capable of handling the situation as long as we stick together." Vision also responded to Natasha in a more placating manner.

"Yea, and we all know how the Avengers do things, don't we." Tony snapped, still raw over his encounter with the woman in front of the elevator at the IT college.

"Are they always like this?" Wanda asked the archer who stood quietly next to her, watching the argument with exasperation.

"Yes." He said simply, and then he frowned and amended, "Sometimes."

"Enough." Thor boomed, and silence fell as all eyes turned to him. "I am tired of wading through your mortal squabbles. I can not in good conscience leave the Lady Hermione to fend for herself in this realm; my time here draws short-"

Steve sighed and resisted the urge to rub his temples. "Look, we haven't seen either of them since that video in France, and that was almost three months ago Thor, with the way things are right now none of us can really up and leave."

Thor did not agree, no one seemed to be able to agree.

Except Vision, who really just wanted them to stop fighting, and Wanda and Clint who had already left to go make sandwiches for lunch.

* * *

Their apartment was tiny. Barely enough room for one of them, let alone both, but they managed somehow. Hermione's German was poor at best, but she had bought a few books with the money she'd been earning at the farmers market a few blocks from their flat.

All of the stall workers squabbled over who got to send her on runs, because somehow the prepared foods they sent her out with always managed to stay hot when it got to the customer despite the rapidly dropping temperatures. It wasn't a bad job, making deliveries. Hermione didn't hate it.

She wasn't enamored with it either, but it was something, and it had been difficult finding work with no papers and very little intelligible German.

She turned another page in the book she'd retrieved from her depth enhanced pockets; a flowery affair on potions making.

Professor Snape would have hated it.

The front door creaked, and Hermione's hand shot under the pillow next to her to grip her wand, book momentarily forgotten.

"Hermione." Bucky's disembodied voice greeted from around the only corner in the one-room flat. She didn't let go of her wand until she affirmed that he'd come in alone.

"Bucky, how'd it go?" She asked, letting go of the wand and returning her hands to her book. He pulled off his cap, lanky brown hair swishing forward in its newfound freedom. He brushed at it with metal fingers impatiently after his gloves had joined the hat on the mattress next to her.

He pulled out a wad of cash, rolled together with a rubber band and dropped it on top of her book in answer.

She quirked a brow at him. "That well, huh." He didn't answer, just made his way over to the tiny sink crammed into a corner to wash the sweat off his face.

"It's rent." He said a bit stiffly, as if sensing her disapproval.

Well, she couldn't really argue with that.

She closed her potions book, which was really more a collection of poetry on potions ingredients, and set it aside.

Bucky turned to face her, and leaned back into the counter, fingers curling around the lip.

He looked tired, but she supposed Bucky always looked tired. Although he'd been getting better the farther on their friendship got. Hermione had realized not long after they'd come to Germany that she herself was feeling more… human.

Maybe a life on the run was better suited to her than trying to forcibly carve a place out in the Wizarding World. Maybe getting away from the memories was doing her some good, or perhaps it was the self appointed job she'd taken on to care for someone who was far more damaged than she.

Whatever the reasons, she decided not to think too hard on it.

"There's something else." Bucky said, regaining her attention. He leaned forward away from the counter and pulled a roll of paper from his back pocket and tossed it to her.

Hermione leaned forward off the edge of the bed to snatch it out of the air. It was a newspaper article she discovered as she rolled it out across her lap.

"What's this?" She murmured, scanning over the title.

 _The Sokovia Accords: Reining in the Avengers_

"Trouble." Bucky said as she moved on to the article.

 _The Sokova Accords: A new document proposed by the United Nations and ratified by the governments of one hundred and seventeen additional states. The project has been spearheaded by U.S. Secretary Thaddes E. Ross, and if signed might just be the very thing the public has been needing to bring the Avengers under heel._

Hermione blinked. She didn't know a whole lot about the Avengers; she knew they'd been involved in a number of incidents that had resulted in a lot of lives lost. She'd head some snippets about aliens in New York but she couldn't say she'd really gone out of her way to learn more about them. The whole thing had that feel about it that said, 'Here lies all that attention you're trying to avoid.'

Mostly Hermione had just assumed they were a group of militarized individuals, and apparently that wasn't the case. Maybe vigilantes was a better label?

 _The Accords will provide the much-needed regulation, and the framework for military and law enforcement deployed enhanced individuals, particularly those working for privatized organizations which the Avengers currently falls under the purview of._

 _Regulations would include a blockade on travel between borders for all enhanced individuals without clearance by their nation's government, enhanced individuals will be required to obtain clearance from their nation's government or the United Nations subcommittee before taking any action, in any country._

 _If any enhanced individual were to take any unauthorized action, or obstructs the actions of those who are acting in accordance with the Accords, they would be arrested._

 _Enhanced individuals who break the law, violate the Accords, or are otherwise deemed to be a threat to the public would be detained indefinitely without trial._

Here Hermione paused, eyes wide. That sounded… well. That did sound like a lot of trouble. She looked up for a moment to catch Bucky's eye only to find him watching her, lips set in a grim line and eyes shadowed. She took a calming breath and read on.

 _Any enhanced individuals with innate powers would be required to wear tracking bracelets so that the United Nations subcommittee could keep information regarding these individuals on hand, so that situations like the current one with Doctor Bruce Banner, who has been missing for many months now- and could be anywhere on the globe- would be avoided._

 _The Sokovia Accords will be officially presented at this month's gathering of the United Nations in Vienna on October 12, and many of the public are hoping to see the control of these enhanced individuals where it belongs- in the hands of our military and governments._

"Crap." Hermione said, folding the paper back up. "This is going to make things infinitely more difficult. Tracking devices- they are serious."

She looked over at the small calendar hanging off their refrigerator. It was October tenth today, all of this would be happening in two days.

"What are the chances that it might be rejected?" She asked him, hopeful but not holding her breath.

He gave her a flat look out of the corner of his eye as he moved to take his boots off and set them by his pallet on the floor. "Slim." He didn't sound like he'd be making any bets either.

"We'll need to be even more careful from now on, I don't fancy getting arrested and held 'indefinitely without trial'" Her tone of voice as she quoted spoke volumes of just how well she thought of that tidbit.

Bucky nodded in agreement and looked over at the clock on the night stand. "You should get going, you don't want to be late."

She glanced at the time too, he was right. She'd be late for her shift at this rate. "You'll be here when I get back?"

He didn't meet her eyes. "Yeah, I'll be here."

She frowned, but didn't comment on the strange behavior as she gathered her backpack by the door and slipped her tennis shoes on.

"I'll be back soon." She promised, as she stepped into the hall.

The door clicked shut behind her.

* * *

"Are you sure about this?" Jane murmured quietly, trying to keep her voice low. She watched as Thor began snapping the rivets off that held his signature red cloak on. It fluttered to the floor and landed in a haphazard pile.

"Yes," He assured as he went to remove his chest plate, Jane knew it had to go- he wouldn't blend in as well in his Aesir armor, but she was sad to see him without it nonetheless. "Time is drawing short, there are matters I must attend to back home and I must be assured of the Lady Hermione's safety before I am pulled away. I have waited long enough, but my friends' involvement has been waylaid by this mortal nonsense."

Her lips turned up into an involuntary smile. Leave it to Thor to make light of a very dark and tense situation. It was one of the many things she loved about him, his ability to rise above the pettiness and and keep his eyes on what was important.

Even if that thing was only what was important to him.

"I'll try to keep them off your trail." She promised, and he paused in his task to look up at her. He rose, all lithe grace and sinewy muscles to stride purposefully where she was sitting atop her computer desk.

His arm came around her waist, and he tilted her chin up. His eyes were so very blue and she sighed as a pleasant feeling curled in her belly at his touch.

"I will return to you, my Lady Jane." He gave her a return promise, and her smile only grew.

When he kissed her, it was like all the troubles brewing were nothing but a temporary hiccup, and all would be right with the world soon.

All was already right with the world, simply because she had Thor.

* * *

"Bucky." She called quietly into the little flat as she closed and locked the door behind her.

"Here." He assured, and she heard the tell tale snap as he returned his gun to it's holster. She toed out of her shoes quickly, and stepped into the room.

He had placed newspapers in the windows, covering them to block the moonlight that would have otherwise been streaming through. She was glad to see they weren't the ones he's shown her the other day, she really didn't want to look at them every time she laid in bed.

Her feet tangled in the blankets he had laid out for himself across the floor as she passed, and she had to hop on one foot across where his legs were outstretched to keep from tripping over him. He chuckled at her expense, and she watched as he closed the little black book he was always writing in.

She never asked about it, but she'd come home to him writing in it more times than she could count.

Hermione let herself fall gracelessly into the mattress, the one Bucky insisted she take while he slept on the floor most nights. If he was home that is.

"There was an attack during the signing." She reported gloomily while scrubbing her face into the threadbare pillow, just to feel the fabric on her skin.

"Not surprised." He returned.

She hadn't made much of a habit of following the politics of this world, at least until the Accords had shown up. She had to take an interest in it because it affected her directly- both her and Bucky.

"Mutants?" He inquired by way of asking who had been behind it.

"They don't know yet." Hermione told him, and she watched as a calculating look flashed behind his dark eyes. If he had an opinion on the matter he didn't voice it.

"Not working tonight?" She changed the subject, and was pleasantly surprised when he shook his head.

"No, not tonight. I thought we could go to the market tomorrow. Actually get some sleep tonight for once." Hermione blinked, and stifled a laugh into the pillow under her.

It was just such a mundane thing to say, especially with everything going on right now.

"We both finally have some time off and you want to go to my job?" She murmured without heat after she'd managed to contain her giggles.

Bucky just huffed at her. "We need food."

They both threw their empty fridge a morose look.

"Alright, I see your point." She reached over to the end table and flicked the little lamp off, plunging the room into darkness.

"I was using that." Bucky grumbled. Hermione pulled off her hoodie and tossed it at her feet, and unsnapped her bra from beneath her t-shirt. It joined her hoodie a moment later.

"What you could use, James Barnes, is some sleep."

She heard him snort at her use of his full name, but she heard him shuffle to lay down regardless.

* * *

Hermione let Bucky do all the talking. Her attempts at German usually got her a few scowls and short, clipped attitudes.

Besides, they didn't need to spend fifteen minutes tripping over words just to buy some plums. Bucky handed her the plastic sack and she took it without argument as he handed the vendor a few bills.

"Right," He said turning to her, taking the bag right back so he could carry it. "Where to next?"

Hermione shrugged. "This is your little adventure, where do you want to go?" He made a show of thinking about it while absently placing gloved fingertips at the small of her back to guide her away from the fruit vendor and through foot traffic.

Ever the gentleman, Bucky often tended to do little things without thinking that at first had made her pause. She'd gotten used to it after a while when she figured he didn't really mean anything by it.

A car slammed on its horn somewhere on the road and Hermione jumped, hands immediately shoving into her pockets to grip her wand. Bucky didn't startle as easily as she did, but she didn't miss the way his free hand was shoved into his jacket as well.

She knew he didn't have his gun, but that certainly didn't mean he was unarmed.

They shared small, self-deprecating smiles and relaxed a moment later.

They stopped at a crosswalk, and Hermione chatted absently about nothing, just wanting to fill the empty space with something mundane.

She looked up at her companion to find him pulling the brim of his hat down, a gesture she recognized he made when receiving too much attention.

"What's wrong?" Dark eyes slid down to catch hers, and he tilted his head in the direction of a newsstand across the street.

She leaned around him to see what he was gesturing at, trying to be subtle about it. There was a young man sitting behind the counter there, looking down at a paper and then back up at Bucky with wide, terrified eyes.

"Uh oh." She breathed, and the man bolted a second later, looking over his shoulder a few times at them as he ran like the hounds of hell were on his heels.

Bucky made a beeline for the stand and Hermione followed after on light feet. He snatched the paper off the kiosk desk and cursed something foul.

"Looks like they found someone to pin the Accords attack on." He said handing her the paper. It was all in German, but she knew enough to get the gist of it.

She cursed too.

"Time to go." He said urgently, and they both took off at a quick pace. They didn't run, not wanting to attract too much attention, but Hermione could practically see the feverish energy curling around her friend as they made quick work of returning to their flat.

It had too many damn stairs she decided for the millionth time as they stopped at the door to their flat.

It was unlocked.

They shared a knowing look, and a moment later her wand was out as she followed immediately behind Bucky as he slipped silently into the darkened apartment.

He edged around the back wall, closer to the nightstand where she knew his gun was.

Hermione's attention though, was on the stranger standing in their kitchen, absently flipping through Bucky's notebook that held his private thoughts. If there was ever even a chance of liking the strange man who'd broken into their flat, there certainly wasn't now that she'd caught sight of him invading her friends privacy.

How rude.

The man wore a strange outfit by muggle standards, tight fitting dark blue leather with some kind of... biker helmet maybe? He had a large, round metal shield strapped to his arm.

A fighter, she quickly surmised.

"Understood." The stranger said in a clear, concise voice to no one, and it startled her enough to make her wand arm jerk even as it was pointed at him, a number of spells ready to tumble from her lips and not all of them nice sort.

And when he turned, his arm dropped to his side, still holding Bucky's notebook.

The stranger let out a soft breath, whether from nervousness or something else she wasn't sure. She hoped the bastard was nervous.

Blue eyes flicked to her and back over to Bucky.

Her companion's hand shot out a second later to lay his palm over her wand wrist, he must have seen the motion she'd started to make out of the corner of his eye.

The stranger took a defensive step backwards at the sudden movement and Hermione looked up at Bucky, startled.

He shook his head subtly, and her eyes widened in response to the negative.

She shot the stranger a glance and she tilted her head slightly towards him in question. Bucky's lips turned down. He wasn't pleased by this man's presence, but he didn't want her to attack him either. Hermione let her wand droop more towards the floor and Bucky let the appendage go.

The stranger watched their silent but quick exchange with guarded, curious eyes.

"Do you know me?" The stranger asked hesitantly into the silence, and Hermione's attention snapped back to him, eyes narrowing. Was he referring to Bucky's memory… issues? He had to be.

So Bucky knew this man then. Or vice versa at least.

There was a pause before Bucky offered a name. "Steve." He said, voice edged with a rawness she didn't like hearing from him. "I read about you in a museum." He added a split second later, and Hermione almost laughed very inappropriately at the blatant lie.

The stranger- Steve, shuffled from foot to foot awkwardly, looking down at Bucky's note book he still held in a gesture that seemed more out of a lack of what to do with his hands than actually wanting to look at it.

Steve glanced back over at her for a moment, as if he really wanted to address her presence but had more important things to say and a lack of time in which to do it.

She couldn't help the shift in her weight when he put the notebook down on the table and took a tentative step toward Bucky.

Hermione edged slightly in front of her friend, as if to shield his bulk with her much smaller one.

"I know you're both probably nervous." Steve placated, showing his open palms. It might have been more effective if he didn't have a very large, and very sharp looking hunk of round metal strapped to his forearm.

Bucky's arm moved slowly to grasp her shoulder and pull her back towards him. She hadn't realized she'd taken a step forward till he'd reined her in.

"You have plenty of reason to be," Steve continued, turning his attention solely onto Bucky.

"But you're lying." He finished flatly. The tension in the room escalated.

"I wasn't in Vienna. I don't do that anymore." Bucky said point blank, his fingers absently digging into the material of her hoodie.

"He's been with me." Hermione hissed her two cents defensively, an arm coming up to bar Bucky behind her, as if she could separate this man from her friend with the gesture alone. It was a reflexive thing.

"Well the people who think otherwise are coming here now, and they're not planning on taking you alive." He said, the blunt statement doing little to mask the urgency behind his body language as he shuffled forward another step, as if he wanted to reach for Bucky.

Her wand came back up in a snap at the implied threat, and Steve's hands rose back into the air to once again show his open palms.

Interesting, how he looked at her like she was something dangerous, like her wand wasn't just a stick.

It was very different from the incredulity that had been on Bucky's face when she'd first leveled her medium at him. She pushed the speculation that this man knew what she was to the back of her mind to examine at a later time.

"That's smart, good strategy." Bucky said, moving the both of them a step towards the door, she followed his lead without hesitance.

"This doesn't have to end in a fight, Buck-" Steve said, voice resigned despite the hopeful words, and without pause his blue eyes landed on her, "-Hermione."

Bucky was sweeping her behind him with a metal arm, even as she let out an irritated hiss at her name.

 _How could he possibly know that._

"It always ends in a fight." Bucky growled at the man, anger clear in his voice.

"You pulled me from the river!" Was Steve's left-field response, voice rising another octave as Bucky pulled his gloves off. "Why?" Steve ended, sounding lost.

"Don't let anyone see your magic." Bucky told her lowly, completely ignoring the other man. She gave him an incredulous look.

"I'm not going to play damsel Bucky, I can fight." She told him indignantly, not even bothering to match his whisper.

"Hydra, Hermione-" But he didn't get to finish when their window exploded inwards, a flash grenade slammed off of Steve's shield as he responded to it reflexively. It exploded in their sink, the sound of glass shattering the last thing Hermione registered before her ears began to ring.

A second grenade followed after it and Hermione whipped her wand towards it with a screech she couldn't hear over the ringing in her ears.

" _Accio Grenade!"_ It turned mid flight and slapped into her open palm and she hurled it back out of the window the second she felt the metal on her skin. It exploded with a resounding _bang_ , their second window shattering from its proximity to the blast.

"Hermione!" Bucky reprimanded and she threw him a petulant look.

"I can handle myself James Barnes!" She spat, irritated with his stay-behind-me attitude.

"Squabble later!" Steve interrupted them just as something slammed into their front door. Bucky and Hermione flew into rehearsed action, everything in their apartment placed just so in case something exactly like this were to happen.

Hermione flung her wand towards the kitchen table, levitated it for a split second before propelling it towards the entrance nook with enough force to jam it there, blocking the door from its inward swing.

Bucky had lifted the mattress over himself and used it to bounce another grenade back out of the window before jamming it upright against the wall to cover the opening.

Two men in full muggle police force gear zip-lined through their kitchen window, and another kicked in the balcony door they had never used and always kept locked. They pointed large, dangerous looking guns at the three of them.

Bucky smashed his elbow into the nearest mans exposed face and he crumpled to the floor, the upright mattress landing on top of him.

Steve moved with the well practiced movements of someone who'd seen as much battle as the both of them, his foot stepping forward to grab the edge of the kitchen rug beneath the rubber sole and swipe it out from under the man standing behind the counter. Gunfire resounded as the man's rifle blew holes in their ceiling.

At least that answered her question as to who's side Steve was on.

"Hermione, teleport!" Bucky grunted under the force of slamming another man hard enough into the drywall to sink him into it.

"I can't apparate three people!" She called back urgently as the front door finally erupted forward with a shower of wood chips and metal hinges. The table held it's place strong and the men crowding at the entrance hesitated for a moment on how to get past it.

A moment was all Hermione needed.

" _Avis Oppugno!"_ Hundreds of birds rocketed out of the tip of her wand to accost the men, who started ducking to avoid sharp beaks and claws, their shrieking cries distracting more than one of the armored policemen.

Hermione rounded on Bucky who was busy kicking a man back out of the balcony door, two quick steps and she was at her companion's side who was looking a little wild eyed at this point.

"Buck stop! You're going to kill someone!" Steve's alarmed cry had her turning to him with an incredulous look.

"I thought you knew him?" She bit at the man, offended on Bucky's behalf. He looked taken aback for a second.

"Backpack!" Bucky ordered, yanking on the arm of the last man standing and smashing him into the floor with superior leverage and a well placed knee.

Hermione turned her wand to the wooden floor at Steve's feet and he quickly found himself jumping backwards into the wall as the floorboards rearranged themselves to reveal their get away stash.

Their trusty blue backpack was springing into her waiting hand a second later.

"How the hell do you do that!" Steve barked, eyes wide.

Bucky rounded on him, "Not a word." the threat clear in his eyes. Hermione was flattered at his defensiveness for her secrets despite being surrounded by men with automatic guns intent on killing them all.

She even let go of her irritation with him over not using her magic for it.

Her back to the door, Hermione didn't see the gun rise up to point at her head- but Steve did.

He snatched the front of her hoodie and she tripped right into him at the sudden jerk that sent her off balance. Steve brought them down into a crouch a with a smooth, well practiced movement that had his round shield in front of them and bullets careening off its surface.

"Not so bad then." She relented to the man a split second later, and he flashed her a roguish grin that was not unlike Bucky's very rare one.

"Time to go." Bucky commanded as they both rose to their feet, already caving in the shooter's nose with a metal fist as the crowd of soldiers all tried to force their way into the tiny apartment at once.

"Duck!" Hermione cried over the blaring sound of gunfire. Bucky fell flat to the floor without question and Hermione gave her wand a twist and downward stroke for a silent but strong _Expulso_.

A blinding blue light lit up the room like a bomb had gone off and when it faded all the men had been thrown back, blasted into the floor and nearby walls.

Some drywall crumbled and hit the floor off the door frame, punctuated by someone groaning.

"Neat." Steve commented, following after Bucky and Hermione as they made quick work of exiting the apartment.

"Bloody hell!" Hermione cursed in exasperation as the skylight above the excessive amount of stairs shattered inwards with the arrival of a number of zip-lined police men. She could hear more coming up the steps.

"Now would be a good time for that teleport." Bucky said anxiously.

Hermione returned his tone with her own fevered, "I can't apparate three people at once Bucky I've only ever-"

"Try!" He barked as the officers intent on killing them landed with heavy thumps on the inside of the stair railings, guns pointed right at them.

"What are you-" Steve didn't get another word in when Hermione snatched one the the straps that fit snug around his shoulders. Bucky's metal hand seized Hermione's their fingers threading, and there was an awful, nauseating tug behind Steve's navel.

 _CRACK_

The police blinked in stunned surprise, the targets having vanished into thin air.

One of them thought to grab his radio in the ensuing silence.

"Sir," He said into the static, German heavy on his tongue, "I think we have an unknown."

* * *

Steve fell to his knees on the rooftop, gasping for air and making a sound that was suspiciously close to dry heaving.

Bucky grunted, making an aborted gesture to rub his temples. "God I hate that."

"It could have been way worse!" Hermione hissed, frustrated but glad she had been successful. "I could have splinched us!"

"Do I even want to know what that is?" Steve commented breathlessly as he got to back to his feet.

"Probably not." Hermione told him truthfully, already turning towards the stairwell with Bucky in toe. She shouldered the strap of their backpack a little higher.

There was a woosh of air behind her, her hair rising on the sudden displacement of air and she whipped around to find a man clad in a black catsuit had tackled Bucky to the gravel rooftop.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Hermione yelled in frustration from the constant onslaught. " _Petrificus Totalus!"_ This tip of her wand lit bright and Catsuit man went ridged, clawed fingertips poised to strike her friend's face but as still and solid as stone.

Bucky pushed the man off of him, and he landed to the side with a heavy thump. Hermione reached down with her wand free hand and Bucky took it, but used the majority of his own leverage to rise back to his feet.

They looked down at the strange costumed man for a second before Steve distracted them. "You are ridiculous." He announced, staring at Hermione with wide eyes. She just flashed him a grin.

A helicopter flew overhead, and three of them looked up quickly in time to see a machine gun pointed at them from a military copter. Bucky's metal arm was around her middle, sweeping her off her feet and leaping forwards to avoid the deadly gunfire that pelted across the gravel.

"Sam!" Steve called urgently, shield over his head.

Hermione didn't see it, but she heard when something smashed into the tail end of the machine and it went careening through their air.

"Who the hell are they?" A new voice asked as she and Bucky got to the feet.

The new guy had _giant metal bird wings._

"Muggles are amazing!" She breathed excitedly while staring at the new form of technology. "How do they hold your weight? Can you actually fly or is it more like gliding?" She asked in quick succession.

Sam- as Steve had named him, looked over at his shield carrying friend and back at her, at a loss as to how to reply.

"Not now Hermione." Bucky murmured, yanking her towards the edge of the roof where she knew the ledges below would catch their fall.

She caught sight of the catsuit guy slowly getting up. "Behind you!" Hermione cried out and Steve turned in time to have metal claws rake across his shield just as Bucky threw them over the edge.

She squeaked involuntarily, and with a quick upward flick of her wand she lightened their landing with a cushioning charm, and then two more until both of them had solid feet on the ground below.

They took off running afterwards, Hermione throwing one last look up at the roof above them as they left the other three behind.

Or -not apparently, Steve landing out of nowhere next to them and rolling with his fall across the inside of his shield, he was up and keeping pace with them a second later.

"Are you even human?" She asked him, panting with the effort of keeping up with the two of them.

"I could ask you the same thing." Steve shot right back at her.

A metal on metal squeal caught her attention and she looked back to see catsuit man clawing his way down the side of the building.

"This is ridiculous." She said, no one seemed to disagree.

The helicopter came swishing around as soon as they'd turned the corner; Hermione startled at the sight of it, ducking her head low on reflex as it began shooting- in broad daylight- with civilians around!

Bucky, who was in the lead a good ten paces ahead of her looked back for a moment, supposedly to make sure she was still following and leapt over a short brick dividing wall.

She could only assume it led somewhere below, because he continued to fall until he was out of sight and he didn't come back over the other side.

It was in that moment that she had the unfortunate luck of having a helicopter bullet drive itself clean through her calf, and another shred through her hip.

She screamed.

Unable to support weight on her newly injured leg Hermione stumbled and landed on the concrete hard enough to continue sliding forward with her momentum. She left a trail of blood behind her, and did her best to get back on her feet, but the white hot agony busting behind her eyes made it a little difficult.

Steve turned on a dime and was kneeling before her in a second flat, not even winded with concern in his blue eyes. He helped her up, flinging one of her arms over his shoulder.

"No-" She pushed him away, "Bucky- go- you have to go after Bucky!" She managed through gritted teeth.

Steve hesitated, eyeing her side that was profusely pulsing blood in time to her rapid heartbeat.

"Are you going to be alright?" He asked anxiously, throwing a glance at the low brick wall when the screech of tires could be heard below.

"Go!" She insisted, and a second later he was gone.

Hermione heard the chopper above her come to a stop, and someone was yelling in German through a loudspeaker.

She disapparated with a _crack_.

* * *

"Stand down now." War Machine demanded authoritatively, and Bucky glowered at the man, completely surrounded by armed gunman ready to blow his head off if he so much as made a move to pick his nose.

"Congratulations Cap." The armored man turned to Steve. "You're a criminal."

A group of police slammed Bucky to the ground, others taking Steve's shield away and cuffing both him and the mysterious catsuit guy.

Bucky turned his head, cheek pressed firmly into the ground and hissed at Steve, "Hermione?" He questioned, having not missed her absence in the last five minutes of running that he knew she'd never be able to keep pace with.

"She took a couple hits, still up top." Steve answered honestly, one of the armed men shook him roughly.

"Quiet." and he fell silent with the order.

Bucky was yanked to his feet and shoved roughly towards the open doors of a police van, and as they loaded him in, preparing to shut the doors he caught Steve's eye one last time.

"You have to find her." He said forcefully, intent that the other man listen.

"Yeah." Steve agreed as the doors were slammed closed.

* * *

Hermione appeared on a walkway beneath an overpass that she often used on her way home from work. It saw little foot traffic as it wasn't properly paved, and it was far enough from the flat that it shouldn't be crawling with police officers.

Fingers pressed hard to the front of her through and through hip did little to stifle the blood flow, and she knew if she couldn't get it to stop she would probably bleed to death within minutes.

The pressure from her own hand wrangled a pained moan from between dry lips. She hobbled further beneath the overpass, just in case anyone decided to go looking out of their car windows from above, and sat down hard on the ground.

Her vision went white and she blinked against it, trapping a scream behind clenched teeth.

She let the backpack slide off her shoulder to thump onto the ground at her side, the pool of blood forming beneath her made quick work of soaking the bottom of it but Hermione was too busy to notice.

She unbuttoned her pants and carefully shimmied them down her injured hip and leg to better assess the damage, completely unrepentant about the immorality of stripping naked in public. She had better things to worry about than people seeing her in her knickers.

It took another thirty seconds to move through the complicated wand movements required for the strongest healing spell she knew, which was a long time for someone profusely bleeding.

The white at the edges of her vision had returned, and she wasn't ignorant of how quick her breath was coming, but found it difficult to forcibly slow it at the moment.

She wished Bucky was here.

Loki, Thor. Anyone.

" _Vulnera sanentur."_ She incanted, breathless and in pain she watched the skin bubble and pop with a sensation that was oddly cold despite the way it looked more reminiscent of boiling water. It made her nauseous to watch, but she had to be sure the bleeding was stopped before she could lay back and rest as her body so desperately demanded.

Bile rose in the back of her throat and she could feel the pounding of her heart behind her eyes and the rush of blood in her ears roaring over the sounds of the cars above.

She never got to her leg, and she didn't cry out when her skull cracked against the concrete beneath her when she fell.

* * *

Steve moved at a quick pace next to Sam, Prince T'Challa who had dubbed himself the Black Panther, right behind them with what seemed to be a permanent look of derision on his face. They were led down several corridors, military men in full uniform with automatic rifles at the ready soon giving way to men and women in business suits and pencil skirts.

"You'll be given an office, instead of a cell. Do me a favor and stay there." Everett Ross, the Deputy Task Force Commander- a short blond man in a suit too large to fit his slight frame, was saying as he led the way at a brisk no-nonsense pace.

"I don't intend on going anywhere." T'Challa snarked back, clearly irritated with the situation.

Steve eyed the man, keeping his opinions to himself.

He frowned, thoughts turning to another matter entirely. If he was stuck here it would be difficult to find Hermione, and the woman who had stood so bravely beside himself and Bucky had been badly injured.

Guilt was heavy on his shoulders, but he had made his choice to go after his old friend and now the woman was out there somewhere, bleeding and injured.

Natasha trotted up to his side, looking pristine and in control, but he could see her frayed nerves in her eyes when she looked at him.

"For the record," She said flatly, "This is what making things worse looks like."

"I need a favor." He changed the subject quickly, taking advantage of what little time he might have to make his request.

She gave him a startled look. "I don't think you're really in a position to be-"

"Natasha, please." He interrupted firmly, and he acknowledged the way she seemed to search his eyes, mouth set in a grim line as they turned another corner.

"There was a woman with us, curly brown hair, height about five four."

"Yea we know." Natasha said sharply, "Who is she? Friend of yours?"

Steve hesitated at that. If he told the truth; that she was Bucky's friend, Natasha would be less inclined to help but Steve wasn't a very good liar, nor was he in the habit of lying to his friends.

But he supposed after the witch Hermione had proven her loyalty to Bucky he'd be willing to count her among the ranks of his own circle. Fealty like that was hard to come by, and anyone who saw the good in Buck was worth a modicum of his friendship in the least.

"Yeah." He decided aloud.

"Well she's right along in this mess with you too now, the German task force is everywhere looking for her. They seem to think she's an accomplice of Barnes'."

Steve flinched, Natasha saw it and scowled at him. "Really Rodgers. You've got to be kidding me."

"She took two hits from a helicopter mini-gun." He told her point blank, meeting her eyes dead on.

Natasha's steps faltered for a moment, gaining the attention of T'Challa and Sam behind them.

"She's out there somewhere, she needs help. I promised-"

"If that's the case, and the task force hasn't found her yet she's probably already dead." Natasha said with little tact as they began descending a set of metal stairs.

"She's also Thor's witch." Steve said lowly, as quietly as he could. The Widow's eyes widened in a genuine display of surprise.

"How did… you know what. I don't want to know. I'll see what I can do. Although if she's lucky Thor will have found her by now."

The group entered into a glass lined office then, and Tony stepped down from a platform sporting rows of computer desks with workers clacking away at them furiously.

"Romania is not Accords sanctioned." Tony griped into a phone. "Colonel Rhodes is supervising cleanup." he added quickly, as if cutting off an argument from the other line.

Tony turned to them, a fierce scowl on his face looking haggard and irritated. He met Steve's eyes but kept his conversation up with what Steve assumed was probably secretary Ross; the man who'd been pushing the Accords on them since the moment it had even been suggested.

"Consequences? You _bet_ there's going to be consequences." He said roughly, and Steve halted, Sam right along with him.

"Obviously you can quote me on that." Tony rolled his eyes and Steve's tense shoulders relaxed slightly at the look on his friends face. "Because I just said. Will there be anything else?" He looked like he was about to hang up but paused as whoever was on the other line continued.

"No we don't know who she is." Tony lied, now glaring at Steve. He'd rightly bet a dollar on who they were talking about- if he'd ever been a betting kind of man.

Natasha caught his eye with a raised brow and an equally irritated look. He gave her a slightly awkward smile to answer her unasked question.

 _Yea, Tony knew exactly who she was._

"We're doing everything we can to find her, if she is associated with the Winter Soldier you'll be the first to know. Yes, sir."

Tony hung up the phone without waiting for the other line to say something when he'd finished speaking, and a part of Steve hoped it had been in the middle of the man having something to say.

"Secretary Ross wants you both prosecuted." Tony said taking a step forward a punctuating the statement by pointing his phone at Steve. "He wants Barnes' little girlfriend's head on a pike to go with it."

Natasha snorted in a fairly undignified manner. "I'm sure Thor will have something to say about that." She said lowly, trying to keep the statement between the three of them. She was only slightly successful with Sam added his two cents.

"If anyone manages to get a hold of that woman I'll be surprised." He made a gesture in the air by wiggling his fingers in what could have been interpreted as something along the lines of _spooky hocus pocus._

Understanding passed between them, Steve more so than the others.

How do you catch a woman who could literally transport herself from one area to another, not just within her line of sight but a completely different one, in the blink of an eye?

 _Only when she's dead._ His pessimism answered him.

* * *

AN: This chapter was Beta-ed by: Wistfuldaydream, and Scarlet Dewdrops

This Fic has officially been settled on Five Parts, even if i have to make Part Five a bit longer I'm gunna stick with it. I know I keep changing how long its gunna be so here's the official word on that.

There will be a short Part Six, but its gunna be more like a sneak peak for the next fic, or a small epilogue and not really a relevant to the story line in this fic. Which is why it doesn't count.

Drop me a review and let me know what y'all think so far!


	4. Part Four

_ii._

 **A Million Candles Burning**

Part Four

* * *

Hermione was dreaming, at least she was pretty sure she was dreaming.

It was a strange dream, all vivid flashes of swirling colours like smoke bombs and incense sticks.

She dreamed she was a little girl, walking slowly through a golden hall and holding the hand of a dark haired little boy whose smile was subdued and a little sad. He was like the still waters of a lake at night, infinite in its depths and glowing in moonlight. His green eyes made something curl tightly in her chest, something willful and strong and forever hopeful in a way she didn't want to acknowledge because it meant that for now everything was wrong, so very wrong.

Her other hand held onto another little boy who was the complete opposite of his brother. He was radiance and sun kissed valleys and a gap toothed smile that found joy in everyone and everything. He was the faith in the good of things and the hard, stubborn belief that everything would be okay.

Hermione walked for a long time; no one with anything to say because their differences in nature just didn't seem to allow it.

It was like on one side of her it was the dead of night; full of its own quiet kind of life. And on her other it was the height of a summer's day bursting, overflowing with obvious blunt headed vibrance.

Both were so very alive, but they never seemed to exist at the same time. For when one was awake the other would sleep, and the two little boys' gazes seemed to slide right over the other as if it was too difficult to acknowledge their brother's nature because it was so different from their own.

Hermione held tighter onto their little hands, her own tiny fingers threaded between theirs as their existences orbited her.

Eternally circling each other and her, yet never quite living in the same moment. Except for the little girl, Hermione, who stood from a place where she could watch the moon set and the sun rise until the day she realized she wasn't in a hallway at all but standing on the precipice of the universe. A nebula stretching before her with a green that was so very green and a blue so vivid it hurt to look upon it.

The colours swirled and danced but never mixed, and she only felt a deep well of sadness for it.

"'If only, if only,'" Hermione's little girl self sang to the nebula, repeating something she'd once read in a book. "The woodpecker sighs, 'the bark on the tree was as soft as the skies.' And the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely. He cries to the moon 'if only, if only'"

As dreams are wont to do, it shifted, colours curling in on themselves and melting in response to long forgotten memories.

She stood, as she knew herself to be now, upon a rolling hill with soft, tall grass that brushed across her ankles. The wind combed through it in a gentle imitation of a lover's caress and Hermione felt a brief, irrational flash of envy for the tall grasses' luck. The sky was painted with darkness in broad strokes of stars that swathed like a beautiful fabric and tangled together like the flow of a river.

Hermione looked from one horizon to the next but found no moon. She felt a little disappointed at the revelation.

"If only, if only." She sighed as the soft breeze combed through her warm brown curls next, and she turned her face into its gentle touch, feeling in that moment more touch starved than she had in her entire life. "The moon speaks no reply; reflecting the sun, and all that's gone by. Be strong my weary wolf, turn around boldly. Fly high my baby bird, my angel, my only."

"That's lovely." A smooth voice rumbled from behind her, and she turned lackadaisically to find a tall man with long black hair and soft white skin that glowed like moonlight. He wore a dark green tunic that was familiar though she'd never seen it before. It suited him; the cut and shape of the cloth.

He seemed so very real in her little dream world, so sharp and crisp in this land of smoky colours and vague outlines.

"Loki," She greeted with a tired smile, and his lips turned down slightly at the sight of her. As if he had expected one thing and had been presented with another.

"It's been a long time since I've dreamed of you." She admitted, and his expression warped, green eyes brightening and one corner of his mouth curling upwards in a crooked, ill-used smile.

It was a soft, tentative thing. Delicate like it might flee at any moment. Hermione thought vaguely that it should be a thing cherished simply because it had managed to be.

He stepped towards her, tall grass parting in his wake as if he were the mountain parting the clouds.

"Dreamed of me, have you?" He murmured in her ear once he was close enough to reach, and as if sensing the emotions coiling around her he lifted graceful fingers to touch her cheek. She leaned into it shamelessly.

Ah, it felt nice to be touched. To remember she was human, that she was real. To receive contact that didn't involve violence. There was someone, she recalled distantly, someone who had shown her this same courtesy but she was tired and it was difficult to think. Besides, this was only a dream.

Loki's skin was startlingly cool on hers, and she hadn't realized how uncomfortably hot she was until now.

"Yes, but you were always…" She eyed him beneath sleep heavy lids, wondering if her mind was presenting a rough guess on what he might look like as this older self. The last she had seen he had been a teenager, and the Loki that stood before her now was a man grown. "Much younger." She finished. His half smile didn't fade at the admission, and his green eyes seemed to dance with amusement.

It was a look she'd seen on his childish features many times, the soft spoken little boy who found joy in books and desired fun just as much as his brother. Just in a quieter, different kind of way.

"What's the rest of your song?" He murmured, and she sighed again, sleepy in this listless space.

She made a half-hearted attempt to remember what she had been singing, but it was difficult and she was so very tired, and the grass looked so very soft. Her knees bent, bringing her down to the soft smokey earth and Loki followed with a small sound of concern.

"Hermione," He said, tilting her face to look up at his even as her eyes began to slide shut. "Hermione, stay with me now." He murmured a little more urgently.

The fingers of his other hand tangled through her hair at the nape of her neck and the touch of his skin suddenly became unbearably frigid on hers.

Her eyes snapped open with a hiss of discomfort.

"That's a good girl," He praised easily, thumb swiping over her check. "My magic can only do so much, I need you to stay here a while longer." He encouraged her, but Hermione couldn't really seem to absorb the words. It felt like she was worlds away, drifting on a sea of nothing as the sun and the moon circled about her in an endless chase.

She wasn't even sure who was chasing who anymore.

"'If only if only' the river sighs her goodbye." She murmured, and Loki gave her and encouraging humming sound in the back of his throat. "If only all time were a knot to untie. There would be no such lie, no reason to cry. If one life is gone… give another… a try…"

Hermione's body slumped forward, Loki's arms circling around her to keep her from falling all of the way.

"Hermione." He said again, more urgently this time.

The colours of her dream place began to melt into nothing, their dreamer too gone to paint them into existence.

" _Hermione!_ "

It sounded like her name was being called from far away, like an echo through high canyon walls in a way that sparked deja vu; but she was sure she had never heard such a thing before…

* * *

Zemo paused before the door to Barnes' incarceration room. He could see the man through the narrow window, strapped down with metal inside his little birdcage.

He shifted his clipboard to his other hand, and he felt content with the knowledge that his Russian was perfect and he would be able to speak the words of James Buchanan Barnes' subjugation without difficulty.

Everything was falling into place as it should, all his planning and machinations. It was almost ready.

He waited impatiently for another few minutes, the clipboard that hid the little red book heavy in his hands until the man he knew as Everett Ross, the Deputy Head of the Task Force, approached him at a brisk pace.

"I know you're only here to evaluate him," Everett began without preamble, pulling out a key card from his breast pocket that Zemo was pleased to see unlock the door.

Everett barred his way with a hand on the handle of the door, and Zemo did his best to not look impatient with the man. "But you're the only one that's going to get to talk to this guy for a while, and we need information on the woman he was with. His accomplice."

Zemo did frown then. He was on a tight schedule with the delivery of his EMP bomb to the electrical compound for this part of the grid. But he supposed it didn't really matter what he talked about while the cameras were rolling. His real goal in being here would begin after the lights went out.

"I'll do what I can." He acquiesced in heavily accented Sokovian, which could easily be mistaken for German. "But I make no promises, I'm not trained in interrogation." Which was a complete lie, but he was sure it was probably the truth for the dead man in his hotel bathroom.

"That's all I ask." And the Task Force deputy let go of the door, pushing it inward and allowing Zemo his long desired access to the room.

"Hello, Mr. Barnes." He began, sweeping into the room with a straight back as the door clicked shut behind him. Zemo placed his clipboard on the provided metal table and pulled his seat out to sit before the man in the holding cell that very much resembled a fish tank.

"I've been sent by the United Nations to evaluate you." He lied smoothly in a tone that suggested empathy for the man in the tank before him.

"Your first name is James? Do you mind if I call you that?" He said kindly, watching as Barnes continued to avoid eye contact and completely ignore his presence in the room.

That was fine, none of this really mattered anyways. It was just the monkey show. Zemo sighed theatrically.

"James," he said, "we need to know about the woman you were with-"

Barnes' arm jerked in its metal restraint, and he leveled an impressive glower at Zemo, making eye contact for the first time.

"I'm not here to judge you." He said truthfully. He couldn't care less about everything the Winter Soldier had done, he himself had done things just as bad- under his own free will even.

"Do you know where she is, James?"

Barnes said nothing, just glared at him.

"I can't help you if you don't talk to me, James."

"My name is Bucky." He said finally, in a tone that said he was tired of being called by his given name.

"And her name?" Zemo prompted the man. Bucky's teeth clicked shut, and he dropped his eyes once more. Zemo could see the muscles in his cheek twitch sporadically with how hard he clenched his jaw.

"We are here to help you Bucky, we want to help her too. But the longer she remains at large the worse her sentence will be."

Bucky looked up sharply at that. "Sentence?"

Zemo let a small, secret smile curl on his lips, veiled behind a guise of empathy.

"She is your accomplice is she not? She was there during the bombing, yes?" Bucky jerked in his restrains, the look on his face spoke of murder.

"She wasn't there." He spat. "She has nothing to do with any of this."

"Oh, but many seem to disagree, Bucky." Zemo said distractedly as he swiped to view the package status on his slim tablet.

 _Delivered._

"But don't worry," He said, voice smooth with his sure intent. Yes, everything was going according to plan. "I'm sure once we find her, we can get her the help she needs."

The lights flickered out.

* * *

"-ione!" Everything hurt.

Everything was white hot pain through every inch of skin to the point of being unbearably aware of it.

"Hermi-" There was frost on her eyelashes, she realized as she painstakingly blinked them open; and frost in her hair. Had it been snowing? So early in October?

How long had she been asleep?

"Everything will be well," A deep voice soothed, and she felt hands under her knees and around her back, gently lifting her up.

It was torture.

She gasped, eyes flying wide open with renewed vigor at the sensation of everything everywhere that was a stark contrast to her wispy nothing of a dream place.

Blue eyes framed by soft golden hair greeted her, with an easy reassuring smile.

"Look at you," She said a little nonsensically. "You have all your teeth now."

Thor chuckled quietly. It was a strained sound, full of stress and discomfort.

She reached up a hand, and wasn't that a strange sensation- to move one's hand all on your own. On purpose even.

How novel.

Frozen blood flecked off her skin as she reached up to touch Thor's cheek in a mirror of the way Loki had touched her only a minute before.

Ah, that reminded her.

"Loki was here." She murmured, and a pained looked crossed the man's features, but he nodded along patiently nonetheless.

The sky was beginning to gather dark clouds, lightning rippling across the sea of grey.

"I was dreaming, I think." She admitted a moment later.

"Yes." Thor agreed sadly, shifting her weight as gently as he could to rest her head on one broad shoulder. His arm came securely around her middle and he lifted the other high into the air; in his hand a heavy looking hammer. It crackled with magic against her senses.

Her skin was burning against his, despite the ice that clung about her.

"Am I dreaming now?" She asked, confused by the onslaught of sensations and the heat inside her skin. "I called for you… a long time ago…" She stopped herself. Something nagged at her, some deep seeded emotion that begged her not to talk about it.

"Hush now, Lady Hermione. All will be well." Thor assured her again in a soft tone of voice she wasn't aware he'd been capable of. It seemed a sound much better fitting to his brother.

"Heimdall, open the way."

Hermione closed her eyes.

* * *

Bucky's awareness retreated, backtracking into the recesses of subconscious until he was awake and yet asleep. His body moved, took action and followed orders, but his mind slept.

Mostly, it was dark and empty and he did everything he could to not recall the pain association that usually followed on the tail of that particular string of Russian words that would make no sense to anyone else.

For him they were the promise of a nightmare.

But this time, Bucky dreamed.

He dreamed of brown curls, framing soft features, neither stunningly beautiful nor unpleasant to look upon; but perfect all the same.

She laughed, light and airy as she had the day he met her. There was a kind of freedom in the sound, and Bucky could never be sure if it was his, or hers. Maybe it was both.

She twirled, a dress he'd never seen swirling about her legs as she took his hand and smiled for him. It was a soft, beautiful thing. Intelligent eyes shining with the promise of witty anecdotes and patient words.

She had always been good to him.

Good for him.

She spun her wand through deft fingers, and gave it a neat, practiced swish in a complicated pattern that he had seen her make before.

Bucky was always watching.

The world lit up, a million candles burning across the sky in an imitation of stars, flickering on a breeze that wasn't there.

"I could take them away." Hermione told him in a voice like an apparition, like a ghost, like a thing long past.

It made his chest ache with worry.

"Take what away?" He murmured in response. She smiled again, softer, subtler a thing full of empathy and understanding.

"Memories." She told him, bringing her wand tip to her temple with a flourish. When the tip moved away from her skin it trailed a substance not unlike smoke, and it exploded forward, spilling fog across the ground to roll heavy around their feet.

He shook his head, an uncomfortable feeling that he was forgetting something important prodding at his mind.

Something… something…

He fell deeper, until there was no fog, no candles and no Hermione.

There was only Bucky, and he wasn't even really sure who that was anymore either.

"Wake up, Bucky." Hermione's voice whispered across the dark. "You need to wake up."

* * *

Thor reluctantly gave Hermione over to the healers, and they bustled about, murmuring to one another as they lay her inside the soul cradle.

"Jotun magic." One of the more experienced healers whispered conspiratorially to an apprentice.

Thor looked up sharply from his study of Hermione's features at that, a demand on his lips, but she spoke first turning to the former prince of Asgard with hard eyes.

"Is this girl of Jotunheim?" She demanded angrily, and Thor knew Asgard's view of that particular realm wasn't a soft hearted one.

"No," He said firmly, "She's Midgardian."

The healer did a double take, both of their eyes sliding back to Hermione who lay feverish upon the table that was presenting a holographic image of her wounds in the air above her.

"She's lost a lot of blood… an impossible amount for a simple Midgardian." The apprentice noted.

But it was the snow in her hair and the frost on her lashes, the ice sheeting solidly across the hole in her leg that was stemming the flow of blood that held Thor's attention.

 _Could it be possible?_

Could Loki still be in the land of the living? Or perhaps the healers were mistaken and it was Hermione's own magic sustaining her life? What was it she had said to him…

 _Loki was here…_

His heart squeezed behind his ribs, and Thor, God of Thunder dared to hope.

"We'll need to undress what's left of her clothing." The head healer told Thor, and for a moment he wondered why they would bother to tell him instead of getting on with it. She needed help, he did not need a narrative on how it would be done, only that they did it.

"That would be a polite request for you to take your leave." A authoritative voice called from behind him and he whirled around, back rigid to greet the King of Asgard.

"Father." He said, a million and one things ready to tumble from his mouth to explain- to protect Hermione from his father's wrath. Odin did not enjoy being wrong, and his declaration of Hermione's nonexistence all that time ago had practically sealed her demise should she ever turn up.

Odin was not known for his leniency in the face of something that could be a threat either, nor was he known for anything resembling mercy.

"I will _allow_ you to explain later." The elder man cut him off, a warning clear in his haggard voice. He leaned forward on his staff, his back curving as if the old King carried the burden of the world on his shoulders.

Odin surveyed the woman on the table with a cold, expressionless eye that Thor knew was hiding boiling emotions behind it.

"Father-" He tried again, only to have the older man straighten, robes swirling about his feet and golden pauldrons glinting in the candle light.

He looked every inch of the commanding lord he was.

"Leave."

With one last look to the heavily breathing Hermione, Thor did as he was bid.

It was better to choose one's battles with the King of Asgard.

But he would be back.

* * *

Odin waited with the patience of a God for the healers to finish their jobs. They flitted about nervously for a while under his unforgiving gaze, many of them too young to have ever had the honor of his presence outside of the warrior feasts.

None dared meet his eye.

He watched dispassionately as they mended her skin, and brought her fever down to manageable levels. They hemmed and clucked over the wound on her exposed hip, an odd sort of magic clinging to the fresh skin there. Before long, there was little else to do but let the mortal rest.

They trickled out of the room one by one over the course of the next few hours, leaving only himself and the young witch.

Odin's staff tapped the floor, once, twice, and a shimmer of gold rose up over the door to barricade the way. Only then did he allow his illusion to waver, and disappear.

It was Loki who stepped forward, robes unfolding into existence around him in his preferred black and green colours.

He stopped at the edge of the Soul Cradle to look down at the young woman who had been his childhood friend.

His magic had dissipated around her, the ice and frost gone from her body and Loki felt a small, distant pang of disappointment for it. There was something satisfying about seeing her covered in his magic, seeing it sustain her life.

Hazy doe brown eyes blinked open, and a slow cat-like smile stretched her lips when she saw him. The strange feeling in his belly curled tighter.

"I knew you weren't a dream." She murmured sleepily, her hand moving in a slow jerky motion to reach for his.

He let her. Her skin was soft on his, and there was a crackle as her magic jolting along his fingers at the contact. She was a powerful sorceress, as he had always known, and Loki was a powerful God.

The combined sensation of their magic made both of their eyes widen slightly.

Her hand retreated a scant second later.

She blinked again, eyes slightly clearer, but Loki could see the pain that turned the corners of her lips down.

He pulled her thin blanket slightly higher on her shoulders when it began to bare skin to his eyes with her restless movements.

"It's been a long time." She breathed tiredly.

Loki nodded, "Yes." He agreed softly. "Hermione-" He began, but cut himself off. He wanted to explain, about New York, about the Tesseract, about everything; but his silver tongue failed him.

He was too used to telling lies, not truths.

His mouth tasted sour as he searched for the right words and she waited patiently for him to give them.

The weight of his father's staff felt heavy in his hand, and he dragged his eyes from her soft features to look at it.

"All this planning…" He murmured to himself, and for a moment he felt nothing but burning resentment for the events that had brought him here; to the pinnacle of his planning. For his actions, his choices.

Because Loki had already _made_ his choice.

He couldn't just give everything up now. Not when he was so close. Not because the one thing that had shown up in his life that had the potential to be something good had come back.

Loki wrapped himself in the ever familiar cloak of disappointment, and loneliness.

"What is it?" Her soft voice broke through but Loki didn't look at her. He couldn't.

He had already made his choice, and he despaired that this, that she, in the end, couldn't change that.

* * *

Hermione knew that expression. She knew that look in his ethereal green eyes. It was the struggle, what that was for him she wasn't sure. Too tired, too sore to really think about all the possibilities right now.

There was something nagging in the back of her mind. Something that begged for her attention, pleaded for her awareness that she couldn't seem to reach through the haze of Loki's powerful magic thrumming across her skin and the exhaustion that lay heavy in her limbs.

It was his expression that finally brought something to mind. The smoothed features that tried so hard to hide the thing that lay frail behind his eyes. Waiting, always waiting for the blow to land.

 _Bucky…_

She moved to sit, her hair frizzing up with accidental magic and her hands clutching the white sheet to her chest.

"I need to-" She cut herself off with a hiss, pain shooting down her leg and the strange table she lay on made an urgent beeping sound.

"You need nothing." Loki intoned sharply, a delicate hand pushing her back down. She went, more out of a lack of strength than a willingness to go. He pulled the thin blanket up her shoulders, and Hermione tried desperately not to think about her lack of clothing beneath it.

He curled his black hair behind an ear in a nervous gesture, and Hermione watched the movement from her prone position. "What happened, Loki?" She hoped he would tell her.

He sighed instead, it was a heavy sound; full of burden and regret. "A great many things." He responded, the non-answer doing nothing to enlighten her.

She told him so, and his lips quirked in a lopsided smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Stay here until you are well." He deflected, "You are the only mortal in the Realm Eternal, and the others of your kind do not know the way." He assured, eyeing where he knew the healed wounds on her hip and leg were with a disgruntled look.

Hermione wished that people coming after _her_ was the actual issue.

"There's one more thing." The slight pleading quality to his tone caught her attention.

"Please, don't mention my presence to anyone. This must be our secret." And the way his magic swirled, and the flat, emotionless quality to his eyes told her that he was attempting to manipulate her.

Maybe he had been this entire time.

Disappointment was an ugly feeling. Like heavy stones dropped into a lake to disturb the calm.

Hermione closed her eyes to hide it, and nodded because she didn't trust her voice.

 _What happened to you, little godling._

She wanted to know, she really did. Hermione wanted to understand what had changed him from the innocent little boy she had known; but she was afraid she wouldn't like the answer.

She didn't ask again for the same reason she didn't ask Bucky why he was the way he was. She didn't ask for the same reason she didn't like people asking her.

Because the truth hurt.

* * *

When Bucky came to, he jerked hard enough to wrench his shoulder in a direction it wasn't meant to go. He blinked open bleary eyes with a moan of discomfort as he registered that his mechanical arm was trapped between the clamps of a large industrial vice.

His head was pounding.

It's not that this was the worst he had ever felt, but it certainly wasn't a picnic either.

"Hermione?" He murmured. The sensation of moving tongue and teeth in his mouth to sound out her name was a strange thing. Uncomfortable, a distant sort of recollection on how to make sounds that came to him before he even realized he was going to call for her.

His witch, however, did not respond. Instead there was a masculine call in response, one Bucky was sure he vaguely recognized as a voice he had heard before.

"Hey Cap!"

Bucky used his free hand to grip the edge of the vice machine and lift himself into some semblance of a sitting position instead of being draped across its surface like a rag doll. He grunted with the effort, feeling like he'd just gone a few rounds in a boxing ring.

Two people came into the tiny room and stopped in front of him with anxious expressions.

One he knew was a man named Sam, Steve's friend. He had probably been the one to call out a moment before.

Beside him stood the man he was more familiar with. They both looked about as haggard as he felt.

"Steve." He greeted raggedly. Bucky was having a hard time getting his thoughts in order. One thing was abundantly clear to him however, as his eyes swept across the room in search of the woman who he had become accustomed to being around when he woke.

Hermione wasn't here.

"Which Bucky am I talking to?" Steve brought his attention back around.

He shook his head in an effort to order his stringy thoughts.

"Your mom's name was Sarah," The words came unbidden to his lips, and he paused for a moment to register them. "You used to wear newspapers in your shoes." He added with a small tinge of laughter.

The only reason he even remembered that was thanks to the missing woman.

"Can't read that in a museum." Steve said in relief. The slight jab at the words he'd told Steve in his and Hermione's apartment wasn't lost on him either.

"Where's Hermione?" The tone of his voice betrayed the intensity of the emotion behind it when he asked.

Steve and Sam looked at each other for a moment, and back to him.

"We've been looking for her." Steve told him carefully, but Bucky could hear what wasn't being said behind it.

 _We don't know._

Well, that at least meant she wasn't dead. They would have found her body by now if she was. Bucky knew if Hermione didn't want to be found, then no one, save maybe himself, would be able to track her down.

He only estimated himself at a 'maybe' because he was familiar with her habits.

It was also due to this familiarity that Bucky's concern grew. She would never leave him behind. She was too loyal, too invested in his well-being to up and leave without at least attempting to find him first.

Something had waylaid her. He was sure of it.

He trapped a sigh behind his teeth, and forcibly reined in the building stress inside his gut. Perhaps he was also a little too invested in her well-being in return.

"What did I do?" He murmured a moment later, wanting to know but at the same time dreading the response.

"Enough." Steve gave a non-answer, and Bucky felt grateful for it. It did nothing for his building apprehension though.

"I knew this would happen." He had been resigned to the knowledge for as long as he had been free of Hydra; all anyone had to do was say the damn words. "Hermione was only thing keeping everyone safe from me." He admitted to the two men into the quiet that was pressing down on them. It felt odd to finally say it out loud. He hadn't even told Hermione his reasons for wanting to stay near her at the beginning, though he strongly suspected she probably knew by now.

Bucky saw the two of them share another look from behind his curtain of lanky, unwashed hair.

"So she's, what, your handler?" Sam muttered reproachfully. Bucky didn't really like the term, it was entirely too close to what he had had under Hydra, but he couldn't ignore the parallels either.

He decided not to dignify the man with a response.

"We'll find her." Steve said firmly a moment later, and Bucky really wanted to believe him. Another part of him entirely said that she would be finding them; not the other way around. And right now he had to trust that she would, because he didn't really have any leftover emotional stability to imagine what it would mean if she didn't.

"How did you know about her Steve, back at our apartment." Bucky questioned, and he watched as his tall blond friend made a small wincing gesture, like he had hoped that wouldn't come up.

Fat chance.

"A friend of mine has been looking for her." Steve told him with a steady blue gaze despite his apparent hesitance. Bucky's brow furrowed.

" _I'm looking for someone…"_ Her voice slid through his thoughts with perfect recollection of how she sounded. He suppressed a shudder.

"Who?" Steve did look away then, and it was Sam who answered.

"One of the Avengers. Thor."

Bucky blinked, startled. Hermione had been looking for an Avenger? A _God?_ Well, he supposed that answered why she never told him exactly who it was. People didn't tend to think well of others who went spouting off about fictional things. And he was well aware that she didn't follow the news enough to know that it was a readily accepted truth in this day and age.

Still, this whole time she had been looking for someone so well known. The God of Thunder. That… explained a lot actually.

"What did the evaluator want?" Steve changed the subject.

"I don't know." Bucky replied with the negative on reflex, keeping his information close to his chest in his distracted state.

"People are dead, Buck." Steve reprimanded, and Sam shifted his weight; uncomfortable beside the taller man. "The bombing, the setup. That doctor did all of that just to get ten minutes with you."

Steve shook his head, and his tone shifted to something slightly softer. "I need you to do better than 'I don't know.'"

It was quiet in the abandoned factory for a moment as Bucky chewed his words and ordered a proper response.

"He wanted to know about Siberia." He admitted, giving a valiant effort to shift his thoughts to the subject at hand. "Where I was kept, he wanted to know exactly where."

"Why?" Steve pressed.

Dread weighed heavy on Bucky's shoulders making them sag slightly.

He really wished Hermione was here.

"Because I'm not the only Winter Soldier."

* * *

Loki had stayed until sleep had once more claimed her, and even in unconsciousness Hermione would swear she felt the moment his fingers threaded through hers, giving a slight squeeze before slipping away.

It felt horribly like it would be forever.

So when she blinked her eyes open again to a dawn lightened room that oddly resembled the hospital wing of Hogwarts to the feeling of a large, masculine hand holding hers, her thoughts immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion.

"Loki?" She murmured. Her head lolled to the side, brown eyes glowing amber in the golden light streaming in from a high window above them.

Brown met unearthly blue, and Hermione knew then that Loki was long gone; but there was a calculating look in Thor's eyes.

A suspicion that Hermione hoped would lead the God of Thunder to his wayward brother; even if she had promised the mischief maker that she would keep his secret.

"You should be resting, Lady Hermione." Thor murmured quietly, despite the expression on his face that said his thoughts were elsewhere.

Thor was no Slytherin; he had always been a straightforward kind of boy.

Not that he was a boy anymore.

She couldn't help the smile that brightened her features at the sight of him, and he returned it with sincerity.

"I've been looking for you." She told him tiredly, and he nodded as if he had known the whole time.

"And I you, Lady Sorceress. We have a great many things to discuss." Hermione's mind distantly registered the similar verbiage that Loki had used before, and it made her smile widen to hear the similarities.

Thor's fingers untangled from hers, and his large hand came up to sweep her dirty hair away from her face.

"There are things I do not yet understand happening here." He admitted, his voice lowering another octave. She knew he meant here on Asgard rather than her own situation.

The swirl of heavy, cloying magic all around her was an easy indicator for the realm she currently inhabited.

"I would wish to return you to Midgard personally, as it is my responsibility that you are here, but I am afraid I may not have the option to leave the Realm Eternal under these circumstances."

Hope bloomed behind her ribs, it made her breath swell with an odd comforting sensation. Out of all her troubles, this one between the brothers at least seemed to be working itself out.

Thor would figure things out with Loki.

Bucky though, Bucky needed her.

So she nodded in understanding, and forced herself into a sitting position with a groan of effort. Thor's head turned away with a snap and swish of golden hair. He stood even as Hermione looked down at herself, remembering her lack of dress too late. She pulled the sheet up to cover herself as Thor made quick strides towards a door across from the foot of her bed.

"I will return with proper raiment for you Lady."

* * *

"I would really prefer pants." Hermione admitted, looking down the length of the white gown the healer had forced over her head. It was a sleeveless affair that clasped at one shoulder with a golden emblem that looked suspiciously like a stylized version of Mjolnir. The fabric swathed about her legs in loose folds, plain and unassuming but as soft as dove's feathers. Hermione looked at it, and thought it would be a terrible thing to try to fight in. She wasn't keen on the way the pearly white scar spelling out _Mudblood_ across her arm was exposed either.

Her leg twinged as she put her weight on it, even with the tightly wrapped bandages that kept the skin from stretching too much. Her hip, as well as her leg, would be delicate for a while even with the advanced magic working to pull the bits of her back together. No healing magic was perfect enough to heal instantaneously- barring phoenix tears. Unfortunately Hermione didn't keep a bottle of the extremely rare stuff on her.

She spared a moment to wonder where her hoodie and blue jeans had ended up, the depth enhanced pockets containing the last vestiges of the magical world. At least she still had her wand, Hermione had no idea what she would do without it.

The healer tisked at her disapprovingly, and Thor rumbled a deep laugh from where he leaned against the wall. His arms were folded across his broad muscled chest and a flowing crimson cape bunched behind him.

"It's not proper for a Lady." The healer reprimanded her softly, and Hermione frowned at the words.

"The Lady Sif would disagree." Thor boomed laughingly, and the healer could only nodd in agreement though it looked like it left a sour taste in her mouth to do it.

"Come, Lady Hermione," Thor held out an arm for her to take, and she stepped forward, white dress swishing, to do so. "I will see you to Heimdall." He assured, and once they were traversing the golden hall Hermione had not seen in many years Thor began to speak.

"I will not attempt to dissuade you from returning to Midgard, as I am somewhat aware of the situation there." He began, and Hermione nodded because she could only assume he would have never suggested her returning if he didn't at least have an inkling.

"But I must caution you against becoming any further involved with the mortal's bickering." He continued at length, the words sounding unamused. "Many will seek to control you, as they do a good number of my friends already. I fear if they realize the extent of your capabilities a parallel might be drawn between yourself and my brother."

Hermione's steps faltered, and she slowed before coming to a stop altogether. Thor stopped with her, his arms dropping to his sides as he stepped away so he could better look at her smaller stature.

"What did Loki do?" She dreaded the answer, she couldn't look at him, her eyes skittering away from his gaze and down the hall, looking for anything else to settle on.

"I am surprised you have not heard." He murmured softly, regretfully. "Loki fell from the Bifrost some time ago, and we all thought him dead. When he did return-" A ragged exhale that had Hermione's eyes snapping up to look into blue eyes darkened with heavy emotional burden. "-It was with an army, and the aid of magical artifacts that he sought to bring all of Midgard under his heel. My brother's mind had become twisted during his time in the void, and he wished to bring order to Midgard under his subjugation."

Hermione blinked, stunned by Thor's words.

"That doesn't make any sense." The words fell flat from her lips too soon to think them over, and Thor looked slightly taken aback for a moment.

"I promise you, Lady Hermione, that I speak only the truth."

Hermione worried her lower lip between sharp teeth and turned her head away with the swish of freshly cleaned brown hair. Her brain was working overtime to try to reconcile this information with the Loki she knew, and the Loki of the Norse tales she had read as a younger girl.

"I don't think you're lying, Thor." She placated taking a quick step to match the large man's pace as he resumed his stride down the corridor. "It's just, Loki is the God of Mischief isn't he?" She questioned aloud, hoping to lead Thor to the odd conundrum she had only just reached herself.

The God of Thunder nodded gravely, mouth set in a firm line that didn't suit his features. "That is the title he was bestowed."

"Well," She continued. "Why would he have any interest in bringing order to Midgard if his whole personality is dependant on chaos…" She trailed off, murmuring things to herself that Thor didn't catch. He did not, however, miss her use of present tense while speaking about his brother.

As if Loki was still alive.

He gave her a wary look from the corner of his eye and wondered if she wasn't telling him something.

Thor's suspicions grew, slowly forming a larger picture in his mind.

* * *

Hermione didn't know what to think of the Aesir Heimdall, but she gathered from the way magic clung to his golden eyes and from the massive sword his hands casually rested on that he was an immortal not to be trifled with.

"So this is the Arcane Mortal." He rumbled, a smile teasing the edges of his lips. Thor's hand settled heavily on her shoulder with a proud look in his eyes.

Heimdall nodded down at them from his high vantage point atop the dais that crowned the center of the rounded room. "You have been searching for as long as my eyes have watched you, Lady, have you found what you seek?"

Hermione blinked at the strange question, and she spun her wand between her fingers in a fidgety gesture as she turned the words over in her mind.

She glanced up at Thor, only to find his gaze already resting on her; an expectant look on his face.

It felt like a question beneath a question, as the obvious one had an obvious answer. Thor stood right beside her, and one would have to be blind, deaf and dumb to miss his presence in a room.

So, what then, was this Aesir asking her? What was missing that she was looking for?

Hermione squinted up at Thor and he seemed to register her scrutiny warily.

When the answer came to her a moment later, she felt silly for not realizing it sooner.

Of course. Loki. She was looking for Thor _and_ Loki. Where one would be, surely you would find the other.

"I have." She answered firmly. Heimdall and Thor shared a quick look, and that was all the help Hermione knew she would be able to provide without outright giving Loki up. She could only hope that Thor would find him, and whatever it was that Loki Fair of Face had planned that it wouldn't lead to bloodshed.

Although she seriously doubted that.

Several expressions filtered across Thor's open features, and Hermione's brow quirked upwards as he seemed to settle on resigned determination.

"I wish that I could be of service to you on Midgard, my Lady, but I am afraid I must remain here for a while yet." He paused, his blue eyes flicking up to meet Heimdall's disconcerting heavy golden gaze, and then back down to her. She waited patiently for him to continue.

"I hope that our paths will cross again soon."

Hermione reached up to gently pat a large muscled forearm with an easy smile.

"I've come all this way, and you think I'm going to let you off with a few measly hours of company? I'll climb this bifrost if I have to, Thor Odinson."

"That would not be a pleasant endeavor for a mortal to undertake." Heimdall monotoned, apparently having no sense of metaphor.

Hermione blinked at him, momentarily sidetracked. Thor rumbled a quiet laugh, probably used to the dark skinned Aesir's manner.

He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze, and not for the first time she felt incomprehensibly small standing next to the fully grown Thunder God.

"It is better to stand and fight, if you run, you will only die tired." Thor advised morbidly, Hermione nodded in agreement though; it was good parting advice.

With that, Heimdall turned his massive sword inside its pedestal and a rounded stone arch carved with runes rumbled omonously. A swirl of colours and light shot out into the depths of space, curving down and off until Hermione could no longer see where it led.

"I'll see you soon." Hermione promised, taking a step towards the portal. One hand gripped her wand with white knuckles, and the other reached up to touch the golden broach on her dress that proclaimed Mjolnir's likeness to anyone who cared to look. Thors blue eyes watched the movement with a pleased smile and an easy nod of his head.

"Nice to meet you Heimdall," She called over her shoulder, brown hair frizzing up over her shoulders with the touch of strong Aesir magic; and with that she stepped into the Bifrost.

* * *

Steve jogged out onto the airport runway, making a quick beeline for the helicopter that had been prepped by someone before undoubtedly being shuffled off during the mass evac.

They weren't planning on using it, but they needed someone to stall and call attention to themselves. They wouldn't have evacuated the airport if the authorities weren't expecting a fight after all.

Steve was vindicated when an EMP mine shot from the sky to thunk onto the exterior metal and scatter off arcs of electricity, rendering the helicopter unusable. Steve skidded to a halt, one foot forward to slow his momentum as Tony followed only a second behind the mine.

He hovered in the air above him and Steve had to crane his neck and squint to look up at his friend. The repulsors in his hands and feet flicked off long enough for the man to land heavily to the ground, Colonel Rhodes coming in quickly after him to stand at his side.

Steve rolled his shoulders in an anticipatory reflex. Two against one, okay, he could handle this. He just needed to stall long enough for Sam and Bucky to locate the Quinjet.

Scott Lang, also known as Ant-man was on stand-by while Clint and Wanda waited for the go-ahead on the Quinjet. Hopefully, if everything worked out, they'd be on their way to Siberia with minimal issues. He knew it wasn't to be the second Tony lifted his visor and he got a good look at the man's expression.

He was furious.

"Wow, it's so weird how you run into people at the airport, don't you think thats weird?" Tony snarked, words spilling from his mouth in a rapid-fire sentence.

"Definitely weird." Rhodes agreed as if they were having a casual conversation.

A thick cloud rolled past the sun, temporarily blocking out the light as a shadow fell over them. Steve didn't miss the way a storm seemed to be gathering in the sky quicker than what would be considered a natural occurrence.

"Hear me out Tony." Steve stuck to the plan. Keep them talking, keep them distracted. If he could manage to convince them somehow it would only be for the better, but he was willing to force the issue if he had to. "That doctor- the psychiatrist. He's behind all of this." And he lamented as soon as the words left him, that they didn't really make a whole lot of sense out of context.

He suppressed a huff of irritation and stuck to his guns, pressing forward anyways. Before he could get another word in a black blur shot through the air from behind him, and Steve's head snapped to the side to see T'Challa land on Tony's right with dexterous feet.

"Your Highness." He greeted, trying not to sound too sarcastic.

The Black Panther tilted his head in polite greeting, like they weren't all standing around getting ready to tear each other to pieces. "Captain." He returned smoothly.

"Anyway." Tony said quickly. Steve didn't miss the way everything the man said seemed to be rushed. "Ross gave me thirty-six hours to bring you in-"

Thunder rumbled across the sky, finally catching the other's attention. Tony and Steve both had first hand experience with this kind of phenomenon, and neither one of them questioned what it heralded.

Tony's expression darkened right along with the thickening clouds. "Nice time to turn up Thor." Steve heard the man grumble under his breath.

"-That was twenty-four hours ago." Tony continued hurriedly as if he hadn't been interrupted. Lightning rippled across the sky, and the first drops of rain began to fall; darking the concrete where it became wet.

"Can you help a brother out?" He sounded almost desperate.

"You're after the wrong guy." Steve shot him down without remorse.

"Your judgment is askew!" Tony shot right back with hard eyes. "Your old war buddy killed innocent people-"

"And there are five more super soldiers just like him." Steve interrupted as the rain began to fall with more vigor. No one moved to get out of the heavy sheets of water, and the sudden change in weather only seemed to spur Tony's aggression and frustration further.

Lightning arced across the sky once more, and thunder boomed in his ears like drums of war.

"Steve." Once again he turned to find a soaked and measured looking Natasha boxing him in on his other side. She held her arms at her sides just so; and Steve recognized the stace as a ready one. "You know what's about to happen." She had to speak up to be heard over the storm.

He wondered if she was talking about the Aesir's impending arrival or the fight as a whole. He suspected it was the latter.

"Do you really wanna punch your way out of this one?" She finished, confirming his thoughts aloud.

"Alright." Tony snapped, "I've run out of patience." He held up armor clad hands to his mouth to shout, but whatever it was he called was drowned out by the loudest clap of thunder yet. A new figure landed at Tony's side, and Steve dimly registered a small man- boy? Dressed in bright red and blue with spider webbing patterns across his suit.

White light flashed, Steve's ears were ringing even as he brought up his shield on instinct to protect himself from the bolt of lightning that struck the ground behind Tony, Rhodes, and the newcomer.

For a split second it was chaos as everyone leapt backwards, inadvertently moving closer to Steve to get away from the smoking, charred ground where electricity had lashed across it.

"What's going on! Did we do that?" The newcomer yelled over the howling wind, confirming a young man's voice.

And just like that the weather died down, the wind coming to a soft breeze, the rain easing up to a light pitter patter.

"I don't think that's Thor." Natasha commented out loud as they all watched a small figure come to their feet inside the smoke. The runes that always marked the ground with Thor's arrival burned bright red on the tarmac and Steve let out a breath of surprise as a decidedly female figure stepped forward. The wind carried away the smoke leaving their line of sight clear.

She looked ethereal, truly a magical being in that moment and Steve recognized then what Bucky seemed to already know.

She seemed every inch the powerful sorceress that Thor had always claimed. Her posture and expression spoke of the ability Bucky had confessed to believing to be the only thing that could keep him under control.

Her unforgiving doe brown eyes found his, and his breath caught in his throat. In this moment, Steve truly thought for the first time that Hermione wasn't a creature to be crossed.

Her arm rose slowly, smoothly, and a ripple of movement went around him as weapons were brandished in preparation; but Steve's eyes were locked onto the dark wood of her wand as it came up to point at them.

"Where is Bucky." She demanded in a clear, concise voice that made him feel much too young.

* * *

AN: Sorry for the long wait. So here is part four, I hope you all enjoyed it! Thanks for sticking with me, just one more after this and it should be a wrap.

Please shoot me a review and let me know what you think.

Also as a side note- Its been pointed out to me (several times) that Buck's apartment was located in Romania, not Germany. This is a misunderstanding on my part mostly from lack of understanding with the quick pace the move set. So for the sake of this fic and the sake of my sanity we are gunna pretend like it was Germany and all move on with our days.


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